The first F1 squabble of the year progresses apace. Having failed to reach agreement over customer cars in 2007 at their recent meeting, the team principals are getting ready for war. Since legal mobilization takes time, it is most likely that scrutineering for the Australian GP on March 18th will be the crunch point. Pity those poor scrutineers!

Good old Bernie Ecclestone was there to suggest a few compromises, all of which were rejected, but at least he tried. But where was Mighty Max? Surely he would have been able to devise a way forward, given his new ability to work in harmony with the manufacturers. But I forget – that is only true when the other side has the power to really mess with him; little players like drivers and independent constructors are beneath notice.

In fact, there does seem to be a widening rift between the two most powerful men in F1, in style at least. While Bernie runs around trying to settle arguments, Max remains adamant that everyone must bow to the whim of the FIA. And given Bernie’s recent criticism of the FIA, it is clear that he is not entirely happy with the way things are run.

The fact remains that, if Max had been there to give a clear ruling from the FIA on the legality or otherwise of Super Aguri’s and Toro Rosso’s plans for the coming season, the threatened litigation could have been avoided. Had SA and STR been told that the FIA will definitely not allow any customer cars to slip through loopholes this year, both teams might have backed down; and, if the FIA’s view is that the cars are legal, Spyker and the rest would know that any protest will be futile.

As it is, we are faced with the prospect of yet another F1 court case and a GP with results pending until a verdict is given. Everyone knows how bad this is for the image of the sport but nobody seems to have a way of stopping it.

Renault’s engineering director, Pat Symonds, has added his voice to those expressing doubts about the idea of customer cars in F1. Like Mario Theissen of BMW, he feels that the legalizing of customer cars in 2008 will create a situation where there are only six manufacturers running two teams each and that the championship could be manipulated as a result.

But just a cotton-picking minute there – that’s two representatives of the manufacturers who fear that their companies will exploit the new rule to favor one driver, thereby winning the championship. Apart from the fact that this is unlikely since, if one manufacturer does it, they all will and that will cancel out any advantage they might have gained, why is it the potential manipulators who are suggesting such a scenario? I hear no complaints from the small teams who apparently face such a dismal future as the pawns of the big guys.

It seems to me that there is more going on here than meets the eye. The potential for devious tactics is not the real reason for the manufacturers’ doubts – that is just an excuse to justify their objection to the rule change. We must look elsewhere to find the motivation of the manufacturers, methinks.

Is it possible that they have looked at the history of F1 and fear the inventiveness, speed of reaction and dedication of small teams? To supply a chassis and engine to a customer team and then find that their customer has devised a tweak that makes their version of the car quicker would be unbearably embarrassing for a manufacturer. It is not beyond possibility.

So let us say that the big boss takes a walk down the pitlane and instructs his customers that, from now on, they must let the supplier’s lead driver win or the supply of chassis and engines will dry up. Well, we all know how leaky F1 teams are – it would not be long before the news made its way to the press and the resulting row would be far more embarrassing to the manufacturer than losing an occasional race to its own products. The Norberto Fontana revelation of last year may have been squashed very quickly by Peter Sauber but doubts linger in many minds, I’m sure.

The argument doesn’t float. In reality, the manufacturers don’t want their task of winning to be made even more difficult by the addition of small teams with competitive cars. It is hard enough already to beat the other manufacturers without having to consider the challenge of customer teams as well.

The suggested collusion by manufacturers raises another possibility that has not been mentioned. If they are prepared to stoop to such underhand dealing, what is to prevent them getting together and deciding to share out the championship between them? It would ensure that no manufacturer enjoys a long period of domination and hogs all the publicity as a result; if they take it in turns to win and get the marketing benefits, everyone is happy and avoids the possibility of never winning, something that they must all dread.

The fact is that the presence of small teams in F1 actually makes the possibilities for collusion much less. They would not be a part of any share-out of the spoils and will ruin any such attempt merely by competing to the best of their ability. And the customer car rule is the one remaining lifeline to such teams – without it they will be consigned to a Minardi-like existence, scrimping and scraping to get enough money together to continue for one more season.

So I’m sorry, Pat, but I just don’t believe you. You have one thing right, however:

“If you say that in 2008 you can do it (run customer cars), then does it really matter about things being pushed forward a year,” he said. “Many other rules have been pushed forward a year, is it really a big deal?

“On that basis, you would say it is a storm in a teacup. But it is easy for me to say that from a Renault perspective. If I was Spyker, I would not be at all happy about it. Rules are rules.”

Spyker may be complaining about the Toro Rosso and Super Aguri cars for the coming season but I haven’t heard that Colin Kolles objects to the 2008 rule change. Maybe that’s because he knows that Spyker haven’t the resources to compete with the really big manufacturers and might have to buy in a customer chassis themselves in future. They are already buying engines, after all.

Colin Kolles has announced the signing of young German driver, Adrian Sutil, to be Spyker teammate to Christijan Albers in 2007. This is slightly surprising, since most had expected that Tiago Monteiro would continue as Spyker’s second driver.

But it does tie in with the sudden fashion for giving rookie drivers a chance. With Lewis Hamilton at McLaren, Robert Kubica at BMW, Heikki Kovalainen at Renault, Anthony Davidson at Super Aguri, and now Sutil at Spyker, F1 is filled with fresh new faces. I cannot recall a previous season in which so many first-time F1 racers entered the sport.

There are two reasons for this, I think. Clearly, the instant success of Robert Kubica at BMW made team managers realize that there were discoveries to be made within the ranks of hopefuls graduating from F3 and GP2. As the GP2 Champion of 2006, Hamilton was an obvious pick but there were others who seemed just as talented. Two who made it into test driver seats are Sebastian Vettel and Gary Paffett, both of whom look to be just as quick as any of the new drivers.

And then there came the retirement of Michael Schumacher. Somehow his disappearance has created a lot of space in F1 and allowed teams to be more adventurous in their choice of drivers. It may well be that memories of Michael’s debut at Spa in 1991 were stirred and the hunt for the next Schumacher has started. The weight of expectation falls heavily on the shoulders of Hamilton and Kubica but the others too will be watched closely for signs of greatness.

Every year we hope for a really good season to come but the changes and shake-ups of 2006 point to a fascinating 2007. So many imponderables have been thrown into the mix that there are bound to be surprises in the forthcoming races. Out with the old, in with the new!

So how good is Adrian Sutil? He finished second to Hamilton in Formula 3 Euroseries in 2005 but otherwise his reputation rests on the potential he showed in his few tests for MF1/Spyker this year. Colin Kolles has made it clear that he was impressed by Sutil’s performance and that is why he was given the nod over Monteiro.

Personally, I applaud Spyker’s decision. Monteiro is a known quantity and the team have nothing to lose and everything to gain by letting Sutil have a go. Albers is competent enough to ensure that the Spyker car will at least achieve its potential and Sutil offers the possibility that it might do even more.

It all adds up to a great season to come. I don’t know about you, but I can hardly wait.

Colin Kolles of Spyker is orchestrating the protest against Toro Rosso’s and Super Aguri’s plans to run cars based on their owner teams’ cars next year. So far Ferrari, McLaren, Toyota, Williams (who first mentioned the problem) and Red Bull (surprisingly) have confirmed their support for Spyker’s initiative.

We might wonder why Red Bull have agreed, since their RB3 is rumored to be the basis of Toro Rosso’s car for 2007, but it is all in the interpretation of the rules, apparently. Section 3 of the Concorde Agreement states:

A constructor is a person (including any incorporated or unincorporated body) who owns the intellectual property rights to the rolling chassis it currently races, and does not incorporate in such chassis any part designed or manufactured by any other constructor of F1 racing cars except for standard items of safety equipment, providing that nothing in the Schedule 3 shall prevent the use of an engine or gearbox manufactured by a person other than the constructor of the chassis.

Much hinges on how you translate that phrase “owns the intellectual property rights”. It is used to avoid the potential loophole implicit in defining a constructor as one who builds the chassis – nothing would prevent a team “borrowing” the plans of another constructor and building an identical car in their own workshop in that case. That was pretty much what happened with the first Arrows car, that Shadow claimed (correctly, as the courts decided) was a copy of their design produced by the engineers who had left their employ to form Arrows in 1977.

But the term “intellectual property rights” remains the weak spot that might be tested by Super Aguri and Toro Rosso. TR’s Gerhard Berger is maintaining that their car will be designed in-house but the rumors of its RB3 foundation persist. No smoke without fire, they say. Super Aguri and Honda are keeping quiet, perhaps hoping that the protest will come to nothing or that TR will fight the battle and win.

At the moment, it all looks to be heading towards a court case, just as with Arrows all those years ago. None of the protagonists want it to end up there and arbitration has been mentioned as the way forward. No doubt it is, but it will be quite an achievement to get all the parties to participate, let alone agree to abide by any result.

So why all the fuss over something that is due to change in 2008 anyway, when customer cars will be allowed? Essentially, it’s about competitiveness in the coming season. Teams like Williams and Spyker had a hard time this year racing against Honda and there is no way they want to see Super Aguri leapfrog over them with a development of that chassis. And the reputation of Adrian Newey, designer of the RB3, is such that everyone fears the Red Bull of 2007; to have a TR equally as quick would be adding salt to the wound.

It’s a hard one to pick sides on. On the one hand, natural tendencies to support the underdog suggest that SA and TR be left to get on with it. But rules are rules in the end; whether we like it or not, Kolles is right.

The best answer would be for SA to look at what they have already achieved with a development of an old Arrows chassis and build on that by designing their own chassis from that experience. And Gerhard should surprise everyone by revealing an in-house TR design that beats the RB3!

Buy Red Bull gear at our F1 Store