F1, Max Mosley, and the Beyoncé Factor

Max Mosley has experienced a strange surge of popularity as of late. That's odd, because for many years he has been the object of F1 fans' extreme distaste, and he has known it.

Here's what he said in a interview with The Scotsman newspaper on Apr. 6, 2008:

"There are times when I'm utterly fed up. The other day I was reading a book called The Wisdom Of Crowds and it got me thinking: if all these thousands of people keep saying I'm a tosser, maybe they're actually right?"

Maybe they were right, in fact I'm sure they were, but now there has been a mood shift.

Everywhere I look I see articles agreeing with the FIA President that F1 budget caps are an immediate necessity that must be introduced for the 2010 season to ensure the sport's survival. I don't believe any such thing, but that's not the thrust of this piece.

Forcing Mosley's cap ideas has alienated some big F1 players. Most famously, Ferrari are outraged, but Renault, Toyota, and Red Bull are also dissident.

That's fine, sing Mosley's choir. If those old stick-in-the-muds can't face up to change they can be replaced with newcomers like Formtech, Epsilon Euskadi, and Campos.

Formtech? Epsilon Euskadi? Is somebody kidding me?

Does anybody on this planet think that Ferrari, Renault, etc. can be replaced by that shower? Do they believe Mercedes would stick around to compete against nobodies?

When a concert promoter can't book Beyoncé, he doesn't just put his Auntie Myrtle on the stage. He needs someone of equal stature or he won't be selling any tickets.

In the same way, F1 is an entertainment sport, and to pull in the mass global audiences it needs the Beyoncé factor, it needs class and glamour, and it needs world-recognised brand names.

Of course there are petrol heads who would watch any motor racing. You could put lawnmowers on the grid and still have avid fans discussing the race prospects. But they are not numerous enough to attract big-money sponsors or to make it worthwhile for TV companies to schedule coverage time.

Mosley is a much more clever man than me. That's why he's rich and I'm not. So he must know that a cut-price F1 consisting of the hapless racing of the hopeless would not be a major series.

But he has his own priorities.

My belief is that we are seeing a simple, old-fashioned power struggle that has very little bearing on the budget cap issue and everything to do with who calls the shots in F1, the teams or the FIA.

The truth could be that Mosley would rather see F1 as an Auntie Myrtle show under his control than as a Beyoncé mega concert controlled by somebody else. This is just my view, other opinions may be available.