The other day, in an apparently idiosyncratic press statement, Ferrari poured doubts on the viability of the Manor, Lotus, USF1 and Campos Meta Formula 1 teams. The Italian team said that just because the same number of teams were sitting around the table did not mean that they had the same quality. In some respects that is a fair point but it hardly seems like something that the team that leads FOTA should be saying. Surely, it is in FOTA’s interest to talk up the new teams rather than talking them down?

“We must also wait and see just how many of them will really be there on the grid for the first race of next season in Bahrain and how many will still be there at the end of 2010,” Ferrari said.

Hmmm…

And then today Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo is again talking about teams running three cars. What is that all about when there are, in theory at least, 26 cars on the grid next year?

The answer is obvious if you ever study Machiavelli. And it explains exactly what is going on at a political level in Formula 1. In the same statement Ferrari hinted that the reason that manufacturers are withdrawing from F1 is because of Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley. Ferrari did not name names but the implication was thicker than icing on a wedding cake. The team seems to believe that Mosley and Ecclestone drove the manufacturers out of the sport in an effort to break the power of FOTA. With a group of strong manufacturer-led teams working together, FOTA was strong. With a bunch of weak new teams, FOTA is not. All it takes is one of the new teams borrowing some money from Ecclestone and he will have power to influence FOTA. In the old days that was a role that was consistently filled by Flavio Briatore but the Italian started believing in the power of FOTA and saw an opportunity to take over from Ecclestone. The end result of this was that he fell from a very great height because he got caught doing something wrong and suddenly found that he had no friends at all. It was a long drop and a painful thud at the bottom.

The chances are that some of the new teams (and perhaps even some of the older ones as well) will end up being beholden to Mr E and that, therefore, is the danger for FOTA. So, strange that it may seem, it is actually better for Ferrari and others to try to talk down the new teams so that they fail and thus do not get a voice in FOTA business. If the numbers of cars falls too far, then three-car teams is the answer…

Are you following me?

FOTA had no say in which new teams were picked for 2010. However there are ways of dealing with the weak and feeble that the Spartans employed centuries ago: there was no coddling, if a child was weak it was left out at night on a hillside. Only the strong survived. Children were treated harshly to toughen them: they were beaten, made to march without shoes and forced to go without food. To survive they had to be tough. Clearly this is Ferrari’s belief.

Watch out too for the teams moving closer to the FIA. The federation has a new boss and he has campaigned saying that he will make the sport better and stronger. This means that ultimately he will try to get more money flowing into the sport and less going out. CVC Capital Partners is taking 50% of F1’s income and is giving it to banks. They are in it for the money and they have taken plenty already. They want more. The problem they face is that at the end of the new Concorde Agreement in 2012 the teams are pretty keen to cut back CVC’s take from 50% to around 15%, which is a much more sensible figure. The only way that CVC can hope to keep its current slice of the pie is if the teams are divided and conquered and so it is fair to suggest that the primary goal of CVC and its lieutenants in the next few years will be to break the power of the teams. The teams know this and they understand the dangers. In the circumstances they need to accept the losses that happen; they need to avoid getting allied with weaklings and they need to find strong new friends.

Looking into the crystal ball, I see the teams and the FIA working together to win the sport back from the financiers…

Convoluted? No, just business.