How quickly things can change when people start getting dramatic. Just a few days ago the 8 biggest teams in Formula 1 (the eight remaining FOTA members) announced that they were starting their own breakaway series. They were reacting to Max Mosley (dictatorpresident of the FIA) who had made some outrageous demands for the 2010 Formula 1 championship. As it turns out, the teams were united to sign unconditionally for the 2010 season the day before they announced the breakaway series, but when the final paperwork arrived from Mosley the terms on it were not as it was discussed. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The teams were outraged, and caused them to make the announcement.

The final opportunity for reconciliation between the FIA and FOTA was yesterday, when they had a meeting in Paris. If this meeting didn’t go well, the plans for a split would have continued. Fortunately, it all went well. As it turns out, FOTA was able to sway the FIA to do what they want to them to do. Bernie Ecclestone (commercial rights holder of F1, who got stinking rich from that position) realised that without the FOTA teams F1 would lose most of the money coming into the sport. This fact is probably what swayed him to change his tune, and submit to the teams.

So what were the teams’ demands? First of all, they demanded that Max Mosley not stand for re-election as FIA president in October. Secondly, they demanded that F1 keep its current regulations for the time being, with a more gradual reduction in costs. The FIA agreed to all of this. All the current teams agreed to race in F1 until 2012, and the new teams will be helped to get up and running by the existing teams (as they demonstrated when they helped Brawn GP at the beginning of the season).

Hopefully what all this means is that we will see FOTA’s representation of F1. This means clear and transparent rules, and cost reductions. FOTA also demonstrated that when the teams stand together, they can force the FIA to do their bidding. Which does actually makes sense, considering the teams are the ones spending all the millions of pounds and carrying all the risk.

All in all I think this is the best possible result we could have gotten out of this mess. It was unfortunate that it was all very public, which did a lot of damage to the sport. But F1 will recover, and I believe within a year the sport will be better than ever.