By Phil Huff
June 22 2006

An awful lot has happened in Formula One since the last BAR-Talk.com Newsletter, too much to squeeze into just a few paragraphs, and that's why I've not sent one out in a while. It's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it! Nearly exactly a year ago, Jenson Button was involved in the now infamous 'Buttongate', covered at length on the site here. The situation revolved around him wanting to leave BAR to go to Williams, but with BAR having a contract on the driver. After much public posturing, it ended up at F1's Contract Recognition Board, and Jenson ended up staying with BAR, ultimately against his will.

Fast forward a year.

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Jenson Button is now involved in 'Buttongate #2', covered at length on the site here. The situation revolves around him wanting to stay at BAR and not go to Williams, but Williams have a contract on the driver. After much public posturing, it looks like the situation will end up at F1's Contract Recognition Board, and Jenson is likely to move to Williams, ultimately against his will.

It's a scenario Marty McFly would be proud of.

All three Back to the Future movies saw Marty McFly doing fundamentally the same thing. He would go too far and get into some kind of trouble, and then manage to come back just far enough from the brink that everybody thought he was a hero.

And thus, Max Mosley and his team at the FIA have spent years going on about a new low-tech F1, with a 90% cut in aerodynamic downforce, smaller less powerful engines, and a cheaper, more open championship. The cars would, according to F1 engineers calculations, be slower than GP2 cars, and most people thought Max had clearly gone quite mad.

Now he's announced that he'd like to see regenerative power systems, slick tyres, push-to-pass boost buttons, and more races with less testing. Suddenly he's looking quite the hero.

A very smart move. Would people be so impressed with these new ideas if he hadn't gone so far with the first batch, though? We don't think so.

This is Formula One. It's the premier level of motor racing. It doesn't need gimmicks.

And it certainly doesn't need a public vote about the future of qualifying that is worded in such a way, and with a lack of suitable options, that the answer will be exactly what the powers that be want it to be. Aggregate times? It's A Knockout style 15 minutes sessions? What about the 12 laps, 1 hour idea that 70% of the public want?

With that, and the recent Michelin saga (which has seen another nice U-turn recently), Formula One has been on the brink of self destruction. Three years from now I could very well be on my knees in the Place de la Concorde shouting "You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

If you followed that very weak link, you'll know that Planet of the Apes (and we're talking the original Charlton Heston version here) sees a future Earth taken over by apes, with the humans being the hunted animals of the wild. It's all backwards.

Which leads me to the GPMA. Formed by five of the manufacturers in F1 (Honda, Mercedes, BMW, Toyota and Renault), they've got together with all of the teams (bar Ferrari) and submitted their new rules for F1 to the FIA.

Yes, that's right. The teams have written the rules, and want the FIA to adopt them. The teams also want a new legislative process in F1, so that could see them also writing the rules for the rules. After that, they just need to control the commercial rights.

You do know Bernie wants to sell, and he's happy to sell to the teams, don't you?

We could yet see a manufacturer led, manufacturer run, manufacturers racing series.

The GPWC might be dead in the water, but the ideas behind it are still very much alive.

You could make a film from all this...

Phil Huff
BAR-Talk.com