Within a couple of months Britain faces its greatest constitutional challenge of recent times: the vote over whether to remain in the European Union.
It is not within Autosport's remit to comment on the referendum - save, perhaps, to record the frets of Formula 1 team bosses, who fear the logistical effects of a potential ban on freedom of movement for F1 personnel in Europe - but, whatever the outcome of the 'Brexit' vote, a long-term lesson lurks for F1.
Imagine, though, if, within weeks of B-Day, some or other dissatisfied parties decided to challenge whatever the result may be, then demand yet another crack at the whip simply because the eventual decision does not suit their agendas despite having been put to majority vote.
Equally, imagine if B-Dates and procedures were constantly pushed out and/or amended, with two months' grace granted here, or the voting system changed there simply to allow one or other faction to get an act together that is already a couple of months overdue.
A laughable notion? Indeed - yet that is exactly the state of play in F1 at present, and not only over the 2017 bodywork/aero regulations.
The fact of the matter is that all appropriate forums - Strategy Group, F1 Commission and FIA World Motorsport Council - voted in favour of what has become known as the 'McLaren Proposal', yet in Bahrain a number of teams raised the possibility of again putting the matter to the vote, (opportunistically?) using the date postponement to April 30 2016 (see below) granted for engine regulations changes as a catch-all clause.
However, on March 4, the WMSC, having had the agreed bodywork/aero regulation amendments placed before it after being voted through by the two 'lower houses', ratified the proposal, with a subsequent FIA press release stating: "The [WMSC] approved the 2017 bodywork regulations proposed by the F1 Commission..." Clear enough?
Equally, in October the engine suppliers had agreed an end-of-February cut-off to propose a four-point plan that satisfied the FIA's demands in terms power "convergence" (a politically-correct term for equalisation), grid supply, price and noise - yet the day before the deadline one of the players admitted that "we are nowhere near close [to a plan], so the FIA will just have to grant a two-month extension". Which was precisely the outcome.
Worse, that postponement has now wormed its way into plans to scrap the bodywork regulations agreed on the due deadline. Imagine applying this process to Brexit simply because factions don't have their acts together...
Yet the masters of an international sport that prides itself on split-second timing and heavily penalises lax timekeeping, be it on rally stages, grid formations or even delayed arrivals at official press conferences, seemingly has no issues with wholesale changes to regulatory deadlines.
Hence the lingering perceptions that regulations are open to negotiation on a whim, that processes are made up as motorsport bumbles along. It is this toying with F1's constitution that reduced it to its presents state and destroyed all credibility, with changes instituted almost on the fly - as proven by recent qualifying debacles, which eventually ended with a return to the 2015 format that was not even broken in the first place.
Indeed, a case could be made that the initial switch to elimination qualifying was unconstitutional, for according to well-placed sources the statutory timeline of providing seven days' notice (in writing) was not adhered to: The format was proposed to the Strategy Group, submitted to the F1 Commission later that day, ratified a few days later and introduced within three weeks.
When asked what the moral of the fiasco was, Claire Williams of the eponymous team replied: "We've learned that we need to take more time to consider proposals that come to us, absolutely."
"You don't want to play out scenarios in the public arena. They should be done behind the scenes."
The irony is, of course, that the regulatory process provides for plenty of time if someone cares to enforce it...
Ditto the erroneous belief that if all teams agreed to a change it would be automatically carried: the process demands that teams agree unanimously to changes after the cut-off date (currently 1 March), but that the matter should still be carried by the F1 Commission with a 70 per cent majority. Therefore it was far from a slam-dunk case when all 11 team bosses agreed among themselves to revert to 2015's format in Melbourne.
The current process was carried over from that outlined in the 2010-12 Concorde Agreement, and was reflected as such during an F1 Commission meeting held in November 2013, with various sources being adamant that there has been only one agreed exception: the cut-off date was brought forward from June 30 to March. To wit, the document stated: "Composition and voting structure to be as set out in the 2009 Concorde Agreement".
It follows, then, that changes proposed by the Strategy Group immediately ahead of F1 Commission sittings - increasingly the case due to cost-saving measures - had arguably not followed process. No fewer than four F1 Commission members - two team bosses (one a Strategy Group member), and two others - were asked whether due processes are followed. As an aside, two admitted to not even knowing the procedure.
However, all admitted that, although, dossiers are circulated, these are, in the succinct words of one source: "blank and seldom have detailed agendas because we don't know what will come out of Strategy Group meetings. As you know, these are held in the morning, then the Commission meets in the afternoon".
That is again expected to be the case when the Commission meets next Tuesday after an earlier Strategy Group session, when arguably the most critical regulations changes of recent times, changes that could have a profound effect on F1's future (and credibility) will be discussed, then voted upon. In which case, why is there no agenda seven days before this crucial meeting of minds?
Consider Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner's comments during the Chinese Grand Prix media conference: "As we sit here now we are not anywhere near having met any of those criteria, and I think unfortunately what will happen, as is often the case with these things, time will run out at the end of the month and nothing will be achieved and nothing will change."
True, they may agree on one of the four criteria, or even two, but the evidence is that they won't achieve parity anytime soon, while sources suggest that legal threats have been made over the FIA's own threat to intervene where teams are unable to secure competitive power units due to political factors.
As for the bodywork regulations, Mercedes motorsport director Toto Wolff now has reservations about changes that were ratified by the WMSC.
"In hindsight, because we've voted on these regs already, we will see next if it works out," he said, ahead of adopting a slightly different stance later during the weekend:
"Somebody else, or us, are going to run away with the championship next year because [there are] new regulations, and everything starts from the beginning. More downforce means less overtaking.
"There is nothing to be sold on that. There is no selling proposition within the regulations in my opinion. We should just leave it alone."
A bit late, Toto - or are deadlines in F1 simply bits of elastic?
Equally, increasing reliance on e-voting may be unconstitutional, as the process makes no mention of such channels - yes, F1 should embrace technology, but only after alternate procedures have been properly approved.
Indeed, schedule 9 of the Concorde Agreement, which outlines the process, provides for emergency votes via a Permanent Bureau, its powers being defined as: "The Permanent Bureau shall only deal with urgent matters which cannot wait [for] the following F1 Commission meeting provided always that the Permanent Bureau shall have no power to modify any of the terms of this agreement". Clear enough?
Yet e-voting has seemingly become the conduit through which knee-jerk regulation changes have been forced from Strategy Group to F1 Commission, then escalated to the WMSC for ratification and insertion into the regulations - in the case of qualifying all within three weeks. True, safety considerations (rightly) provide for such expediency, but since when is a change made to "spice the show" a critical issue?
As this was written F1 provided a perfect example of just how the expediency provided by e-voting enables the system to be circumvented, usually to its own detriment: The FIA's 2017-20 tyre supply tender revealed just two qualified parties (present incumbent Pirelli and hopeful Michelin), both of which laid down certain conditions should they be granted the deal. Pirelli's was a strict testing regime.
As is its prerogative, commercial rights holder FOM elected to retain Pirelli, with CEO Bernie Ecclestone telling global television in October during the Russian Grand Prix of his choice. Yet, at time of writing no contract has been signed, simply because the test schedule had not been agreed to, despite (possible?) swingeing aero regulation changes coming into force within nine months.
This writer regularly questioned this situation with Pirelli and the governing body, only to be given the stock phrase that all was "normal", with further insinuations that a story was being sought where none existed. Then, in China Pirelli revealed that, unless the requisite test schedule was agreed to PDQ, it would consider withdrawing. Suddenly an (emergency) e-vote by the Commission was called on Monday!
Think about that: Since August 2015 all parties were totally aware of Pirelli's testing demands - with at least five full-blown F1 Commission having been convened in the interim, plus innumerable e-votes - yet it took serious threats by the supplier over conditions at least specified six months ago to galvanise F1 into action. By e-vote, a week before a scheduled F1 Commission meeting...
F1 faces a series of crucial votes next week and it remains incumbent on every single party involved, from technical/sporting regulations meetings to Strategy Group and through F1 Commission to the WMSC, to adhere to process, or move to amend outdated procedures. When will the agenda be published, in writing, is the question on many lips.
If process is not followed, F1 risks losing what integrity is left. It is simply astounding that a global pastime so consumed by the nitty-gritty that it differentiates between "holes" and "slots" and prescribes minimum tyre pressures and camber angles, appears not to follow its own internal procedures by seemingly flailing about at the last minute. The last sport to blatantly disregard its statutes was football...
At the height of former FIA president Max Mosley's powers F1 Commission meetings were called at his pleasure - which, according to a team boss of the time, meant "seldom unless he wished to force through issues" - and consequently teams demanded that a minimum of three properly called F1 Commission sessions be convened annually, for which clauses were inserted into the Concorde.
Therefore F1 swung from one extreme to the other or, as one source put it, "from iron-fisted autocracy to soft democracy" in six years, but seems unable to find a happy medium. Some blame democracy for the mess F1 finds itself, but that is to slide blame away from its executive, and onto a system that functioned perfectly well from 2009-13, when the Strategy Group was established to appease money men.
Within a couple of months Britain faces its greatest constitutional challenge of recent times: the vote over whether to remain in the European Union.
It is not within Autosport's remit to comment on the referendum - save, perhaps, to record the frets of Formula 1 team bosses, who fear the logistical effects of a potential ban on freedom of movement for F1 personnel in Europe - but, whatever the outcome of the 'Brexit' vote, a long-term lesson lurks for F1.
Imagine, though, if, within weeks of B-Day, some or other dissatisfied parties decided to challenge whatever the result may be, then demand yet another crack at the whip simply because the eventual decision does not suit their agendas despite having been put to majority vote.
Equally, imagine if B-Dates and procedures were constantly pushed out and/or amended, with two months' grace granted here, or the voting system changed there simply to allow one or other faction to get an act together that is already a couple of months overdue.
A laughable notion? Indeed - yet that is exactly the state of play in F1 at present, and not only over the 2017 bodywork/aero regulations.
The fact of the matter is that all appropriate forums - Strategy Group, F1 Commission and FIA World Motorsport Council - voted in favour of what has become known as the 'McLaren Proposal', yet in Bahrain a number of teams raised the possibility of again putting the matter to the vote, (opportunistically?) using the date postponement to April 30 2016 (see below) granted for engine regulations changes as a catch-all clause.
However, on March 4, the WMSC, having had the agreed bodywork/aero regulation amendments placed before it after being voted through by the two 'lower houses', ratified the proposal, with a subsequent FIA press release stating: "The [WMSC] approved the 2017 bodywork regulations proposed by the F1 Commission..." Clear enough?
Equally, in October the engine suppliers had agreed an end-of-February cut-off to propose a four-point plan that satisfied the FIA's demands in terms power "convergence" (a politically-correct term for equalisation), grid supply, price and noise - yet the day before the deadline one of the players admitted that "we are nowhere near close [to a plan], so the FIA will just have to grant a two-month extension". Which was precisely the outcome.
Worse, that postponement has now wormed its way into plans to scrap the bodywork regulations agreed on the due deadline. Imagine applying this process to Brexit simply because factions don't have their acts together...
Yet the masters of an international sport that prides itself on split-second timing and heavily penalises lax timekeeping, be it on rally stages, grid formations or even delayed arrivals at official press conferences, seemingly has no issues with wholesale changes to regulatory deadlines.
Hence the lingering perceptions that regulations are open to negotiation on a whim, that processes are made up as motorsport bumbles along. It is this toying with F1's constitution that reduced it to its presents state and destroyed all credibility, with changes instituted almost on the fly - as proven by recent qualifying debacles, which eventually ended with a return to the 2015 format that was not even broken in the first place.
Indeed, a case could be made that the initial switch to elimination qualifying was unconstitutional, for according to well-placed sources the statutory timeline of providing seven days' notice (in writing) was not adhered to: The format was proposed to the Strategy Group, submitted to the F1 Commission later that day, ratified a few days later and introduced within three weeks.
When asked what the moral of the fiasco was, Claire Williams of the eponymous team replied: "We've learned that we need to take more time to consider proposals that come to us, absolutely."
"You don't want to play out scenarios in the public arena. They should be done behind the scenes."
The irony is, of course, that the regulatory process provides for plenty of time if someone cares to enforce it...
Ditto the erroneous belief that if all teams agreed to a change it would be automatically carried: the process demands that teams agree unanimously to changes after the cut-off date (currently 1 March), but that the matter should still be carried by the F1 Commission with a 70 per cent majority. Therefore it was far from a slam-dunk case when all 11 team bosses agreed among themselves to revert to 2015's format in Melbourne.
The current process was carried over from that outlined in the 2010-12 Concorde Agreement, and was reflected as such during an F1 Commission meeting held in November 2013, with various sources being adamant that there has been only one agreed exception: the cut-off date was brought forward from June 30 to March. To wit, the document stated: "Composition and voting structure to be as set out in the 2009 Concorde Agreement".
It follows, then, that changes proposed by the Strategy Group immediately ahead of F1 Commission sittings - increasingly the case due to cost-saving measures - had arguably not followed process. No fewer than four F1 Commission members - two team bosses (one a Strategy Group member), and two others - were asked whether due processes are followed. As an aside, two admitted to not even knowing the procedure.
However, all admitted that, although, dossiers are circulated, these are, in the succinct words of one source: "blank and seldom have detailed agendas because we don't know what will come out of Strategy Group meetings. As you know, these are held in the morning, then the Commission meets in the afternoon".
That is again expected to be the case when the Commission meets next Tuesday after an earlier Strategy Group session, when arguably the most critical regulations changes of recent times, changes that could have a profound effect on F1's future (and credibility) will be discussed, then voted upon. In which case, why is there no agenda seven days before this crucial meeting of minds?
Consider Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner's comments during the Chinese Grand Prix media conference: "As we sit here now we are not anywhere near having met any of those criteria, and I think unfortunately what will happen, as is often the case with these things, time will run out at the end of the month and nothing will be achieved and nothing will change."
True, they may agree on one of the four criteria, or even two, but the evidence is that they won't achieve parity anytime soon, while sources suggest that legal threats have been made over the FIA's own threat to intervene where teams are unable to secure competitive power units due to political factors.
As for the bodywork regulations, Mercedes motorsport director Toto Wolff now has reservations about changes that were ratified by the WMSC.
"In hindsight, because we've voted on these regs already, we will see next if it works out," he said, ahead of adopting a slightly different stance later during the weekend:
"Somebody else, or us, are going to run away with the championship next year because [there are] new regulations, and everything starts from the beginning. More downforce means less overtaking.
"There is nothing to be sold on that. There is no selling proposition within the regulations in my opinion. We should just leave it alone."
A bit late, Toto - or are deadlines in F1 simply bits of elastic?
Equally, increasing reliance on e-voting may be unconstitutional, as the process makes no mention of such channels - yes, F1 should embrace technology, but only after alternate procedures have been properly approved.
Indeed, schedule 9 of the Concorde Agreement, which outlines the process, provides for emergency votes via a Permanent Bureau, its powers being defined as: "The Permanent Bureau shall only deal with urgent matters which cannot wait [for] the following F1 Commission meeting provided always that the Permanent Bureau shall have no power to modify any of the terms of this agreement". Clear enough?
Yet e-voting has seemingly become the conduit through which knee-jerk regulation changes have been forced from Strategy Group to F1 Commission, then escalated to the WMSC for ratification and insertion into the regulations - in the case of qualifying all within three weeks. True, safety considerations (rightly) provide for such expediency, but since when is a change made to "spice the show" a critical issue?
As this was written F1 provided a perfect example of just how the expediency provided by e-voting enables the system to be circumvented, usually to its own detriment: The FIA's 2017-20 tyre supply tender revealed just two qualified parties (present incumbent Pirelli and hopeful Michelin), both of which laid down certain conditions should they be granted the deal. Pirelli's was a strict testing regime.
As is its prerogative, commercial rights holder FOM elected to retain Pirelli, with CEO Bernie Ecclestone telling global television in October during the Russian Grand Prix of his choice. Yet, at time of writing no contract has been signed, simply because the test schedule had not been agreed to, despite (possible?) swingeing aero regulation changes coming into force within nine months.
This writer regularly questioned this situation with Pirelli and the governing body, only to be given the stock phrase that all was "normal", with further insinuations that a story was being sought where none existed. Then, in China Pirelli revealed that, unless the requisite test schedule was agreed to PDQ, it would consider withdrawing. Suddenly an (emergency) e-vote by the Commission was called on Monday!
Think about that: Since August 2015 all parties were totally aware of Pirelli's testing demands - with at least five full-blown F1 Commission having been convened in the interim, plus innumerable e-votes - yet it took serious threats by the supplier over conditions at least specified six months ago to galvanise F1 into action. By e-vote, a week before a scheduled F1 Commission meeting...
F1 faces a series of crucial votes next week and it remains incumbent on every single party involved, from technical/sporting regulations meetings to Strategy Group and through F1 Commission to the WMSC, to adhere to process, or move to amend outdated procedures. When will the agenda be published, in writing, is the question on many lips.
If process is not followed, F1 risks losing what integrity is left. It is simply astounding that a global pastime so consumed by the nitty-gritty that it differentiates between "holes" and "slots" and prescribes minimum tyre pressures and camber angles, appears not to follow its own internal procedures by seemingly flailing about at the last minute. The last sport to blatantly disregard its statutes was football...
At the height of former FIA president Max Mosley's powers F1 Commission meetings were called at his pleasure - which, according to a team boss of the time, meant "seldom unless he wished to force through issues" - and consequently teams demanded that a minimum of three properly called F1 Commission sessions be convened annually, for which clauses were inserted into the Concorde.
Therefore F1 swung from one extreme to the other or, as one source put it, "from iron-fisted autocracy to soft democracy" in six years, but seems unable to find a happy medium. Some blame democracy for the mess F1 finds itself, but that is to slide blame away from its executive, and onto a system that functioned perfectly well from 2009-13, when the Strategy Group was established to appease money men.