Formula One Monkey Business

When the prime minister—any prime minister—expresses his or her fullest confidence in a member of the government you can be fairly sure the unlucky recipient of that confidence is doomed. Similarly, when your boss takes the trouble to tell you what a key part of the team you are, then you should immediately seek other career options.

Cynical? Of course, but that is only another word for realistic.

Let me now attempt to link realism and F1 by quoting the popular FIA President Max Mosley.

"If we are going to be realistic, we have to assume that all the car manufacturers, when they start cost-cutting, shutting factories and letting people off, will look at Formula One and they will ask themselves the question, 'Do we want to continue?' And only they can answer that question, but we can be quite certain that it will be asked."

He must be right. The car makers will respond to the downturn in sales by reducing production capacity, they have no choice. So what chance is there that any of those makers who support F1 teams will feel able to continue putting money into our favourite sport?

Here is a practical experiment by which you will be able to determine the answer to that question. Fill a bowl with boiling water to represent a struggling car maker. To represent that maker's F1 team, drop an ice cube into the bowl.

Now look at this statement from Toyota.

"Toyota is currently committed to succeeding in Formula One and to reducing our costs."

The key word there is "currently." Up until the day they announce an end to their F1 involvement every car maker will insist on how committed to the sport they are, but you know better, because you've seen the ice cube.

My title photo will not mean anything to non-UK readers. It shows the ITV Digital monkey, who was a very well-known and popular advertising character used to promote a hugely expensive but disastrous terrestrial digital TV venture.

When ITV Digital went into administration, similar to US chapter 11 bankruptcy, their head honcho said "the company is approaching the process in a very positive way and intends to emerge from administration as a much stronger business with a long-term future."

Ho, ho, ho.

For in the corporate world truth is heresy, and anyone who dares speak it is damned as a negative thinker, not a team player. But this twisted universe where up is down does always give clues to reality, and you may know who will quit F1 next by seeing who most loudly proclaims their long-term commitment.

Dominoes are like-minded; when one topples they will all fall.

It is sometimes claimed that manufacturer F1 teams must stick around because they have contracts up until 2012 or somesuch. All of those contracts are worthless, because they are always with the F1 team, never with the car maker who owns the team. Thus when the team dies the contract is also deceased.

But be assured this will all work out to the good of F1 fans. We are rapidly moving to a situation where instead of F1 being available to teams who can afford it, F1 will have to suit the needs and resources of the many racing organisations who would love to be there.

Maybe, and how I hope this is true, F1 is coming home.