Ron Dennis and Frank Williams challenged Max Mosley to a duel last week; in response, he gave them a writing proficiency class. This is what the heads of the sport are doing, just a few days before one of the most confusing and uncertain seasons in F1 history begins. Biranit Goren explains why it doesn't really matter who's right

The important part of FIA president Max Mosley's letter, the hidden agenda and purpose of it all, comes right at the end. After having his fun for thirty paragraphs, ridiculing team owners Ron Dennis and Frank Williams, Mosley gets to the point of asking, in so many words, 'so when do we meet?'

Mosley has a way with words. He is eloquent, sharp, at times witty, and his lengthy letter to Dennis and Williams, in response to their letter last week notifying him of their plans to take the FIA to arbitration over the latest changes in the sport's rules, is yet another display of his literary capabilities.

Literary capabilities are also one of the issues discussed in Mosley's letter: telling Dennis and Williams that their letter was "unfocused" or "confused" is something they ought to expect to hear from their editor. Moreover, on three occasions, while quoting from their original letter, Mosley uses the term 'sic' - a Latin word (meaning 'thus') normally used by writers to alert the readers that a quote is presented as originally made, but there is an error or poor language in the original writing. In other words, Mosley is giving the pair a writing lesson first and foremost. It's not the FIA president writing a letter to two respected team owners; it's a highly educated lawyer from Oxford responding to an ex-mechanic and an ex-driver from Oxfordshire.

Mosley has a point in telling Dennis and Williams that their public challenge of the FIA's latest decisions is potentially damaging to the sport's already rather dented image. In fact, taking the FIA to arbitration could prove absolutely devastating to the sport: if, after a year-long of racing, a legal entity proclaims the new rules null and void, it would potentially disqualify the entire 2003 World Championship. And what could be more lethal to Formula One - not to mention a total waste of money - than that?

Moreover, it is repugnant that Williams and Dennis are playing the "Safety Card" - claiming the new rules are unsafe to drivers - while at the same time seeking lengthy arbitration, which has the effect of asking the drivers to risk their lives for an entire season potentially in vain. Instead, Dennis and Williams could have worked on lobbying their point of view to reverse the changes in 2004. After all, Mosley already said, back in December, that these changes are a 'work in progress'.

Mosley also has a point in criticising Dennis and Williams for sending their letter to the media and launching their campaign in the public domain. The problem is, Mosley himself is no stranger to letting the crowd in on their behind-the-scene feuds. Just a couple of years ago, it was Mosley's letter to Dennis and Williams that got circulated in the paddock after the FIA president lashed out at the two for going behind the FIA's back to the European Commission amidst the latter's anti-trust investigation of Formula One.

Mosley didn't like it when the two were taking stealth action against the FIA; he doesn't like it when they're doing it in public. The two sides have been at loggerheads for several years now, and how Dennis or Williams elect to challenge the president is moot: to the casual fan, observing the feud from the outside, it's the challenge itself that Mosley seems to be rejecting.

Dennis ironically has a point in accusing the FIA of 'dictatorial' behaviour, but his problem is that Formula One is not a democracy or a republic - the governing body should be dictatorial towards the teams, whether Dennis likes it or not. A governing body should govern, and a sport should not have its participants calling the shots, especially when they're not even the ones to elect the president. Moreover, participants come and go, and participants seldom agree on anything. They are rivals by nature; they are battling with each other. To expect competitors to unionise is a ridiculous notion, and certainly not what sport should be about.

Imagine Carl Lewis, Ben Johnson and Linford Christie sitting down to decide on the procedure of the 100 meters competition prior to the Olympic games; better yet, imagine Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve trying to reach an agreement on the starting procedures of the Italian Grand Prix... Do you really think David Richards and Jean Todt are any different, simply because they have a wider responsibility than their drivers? They have so far managed to come up with nothing more than a "sad little list" - as Mosley himself calls the teams' attempt at coming up with unanimously-agreed on changes in December.

The problem is, those involved in the sport are currently spending too much of their efforts on the wrong campaign. Dennis's and Williams's primary concern should be the race results come Sunday; Mosley's primary concern should be towards the welfare of the sport. Instead, both sides are occupying themselves too much in internal politics, fighting the right battle at the wrong field.

Specifically for the FIA, it's the endorsement of the fans that is most needed. If Mosley obtains overwhelming public support to the new changes, do you really think that Ron Dennis or Frank Williams will have leverage to fight against him? Overwhelming public support translates into higher TV figures, more sponsors, and more participants eager to join in. And Dennis and Williams stand to gain from such an upturn as much as anyone.

But you don't win public support through letters. Entertaining as it may be to see Mosley challenge Dennis to a duel of pencils at dawn, it's a side-show; it's not substantial. Rather, with just a few days to go before the 2003 season, there should be an organised effort in 'selling' the new formula to the fans. And when the first broadcast of the 2003 season gets on the air in over 200 countries next weekend, there should be a line of team owners, FIA and FOM officials, ex-drivers and current drivers - all with one goal in mind: win the public back.

Formula One needs now, more than ever - with television audience plumetting, by their own statistics - to win the vote of confidence of fans and sponsors; of casual followers; of potential new participants. This should be Dennis's and Williams's goal as much as it should be Mosley's or Ecclestone's. But since announcing in November that "something has to be done", through announcing in December that there's a new qualifying format, through announcing in January that there will be no refuelling between qualifying and the race, and then announcing just two weeks before the season begins that warm-up is cancelled - Formula One look to the casual fan to be in a complete state of disarray.

If Mosley thinks that Dennis and Williams are "unfocused" or "confused", he should go down to the nearest pub and grab a word with a few Formula One fans. They're not just confused, they're overwhelmed.

It seems no one is accountable anymore to the public. Under the pretentious banner of saving the sport, Ron Dennis and Frank Williams may well endanger it - if they are successful in their arbitration. In turn, Max Mosley is taking a bite from that poisoned apple, rather than swallowing his pride; 'let's meet' is all that Mosley's letter to Dennis and Williams should have been about.

2003 is a watershed year for Formula One, a year that will define in the long run which direction the sport takes, whether it survives the economical crisis of recent times, and whether it remains relevant to the big audience it always attracted. It's the battle to bring back the fans - and that is the only war these men should be running now; this is the whole ballgame. If they lose sight of it, then it won't really matter who was right.

Sidebar: The Letter Max Mosley Should Have Sent Thomas O'Keefe offers his own recommended version of Mosley's response to Frank Williams and Ron Dennis Ron Dennis, CBE Chairman and CEO TAG McLaren Holdings Frank Williams, CBE Managing Director Williams F1 Re: Coalition of The Willing Dear Ron and Frank: Thank you for your February 20th letter which endorses the idea of a constructive dialogue but then quickly descends into a failure-to-consult indictment against the FIA and a call for an expensive and protracted arbitration in Switzerland that even you predict could take as much as a year. In my view, the differences that divide us are few and could be disposed of in an afternoon (and certainly before Melbourne) if all parties, including the Technical Working Group, came here to the Place de la Concorde, sat around our conference table at the FIA and had at it. I invite you to do so. It is certainly not in the interest of the sport or the drivers who risk their lives out there, as Frank so eloquently reminds us, for those drivers to run an entire season under a legal cloud because of a challenge by your teams to the regularity of the procedure followed in implementing the recent rule changes. Or as David Richards of BAR put it: "This is the last thing the sport needs at the moment. We should all be pulling together to make it a success." We all want Formula One to remain as the Gold Standard of all sports, not only as to excitement and technical challenge but also as to the professionalism and integrity with which it is run, including the implementation of changes in the rules. Neither of you seems to question the desirability of change at this juncture and your letter acknowledges "that Formula One needs to change and evolve." Nor has the FIA proved to be inflexible in this process, as we have taken into account the remarks of Renault F1 in altering the proposed engine rules. We are only differing on the extent of the changes and the timing of their introduction and it will do little good for your teams or the sport to get bogged down in meetings with QC's and solicitors when the resolution of the issues before us are sporting and engineering in nature, not legal matters. Finally, as we said in our press release, any team is entitled to seek arbitration but the FIA is confident that its position will be upheld. Although we are very proud of the FIA's track record in the courts and in administrative settings, most recently before the European Commission, our principal focus is to be a sporting authority and not a litigant and we take no joy in achieving a history in a lawsuit or arbitration that was improvidently brought and only ends up tarnishing the sport. Both sides doubtless have fistfuls of legal opinions from eminent counsel as to who is "right" but, as the Americans say, that does not amount to a hill of beans when the sport itself could be damaged in the process. In sum, in the interests of accommodating the teams and avoiding the diversion of our collective energies and resources away from racing and towards litigation, I respectfully request that your demand for arbitration be withdrawn and that the parties meet at the FIA Headquarters in Paris with all deliberate speed - including the teams, the FIA and the Commercial Rights Holder - to resolve our differences in a professional way, beginning with the measures agreed to at the December 4, 2002 meeting referenced in your letter and going on from there. With best wishes Yours sincerely, Max Mosley cc: Bernie Ecclestone        Team Principals