F1 battles resume in two weeks

What are we going to see? Well ,pretty much what we have been watching so far this year. With the FIA enforced restrictions on testing and the engine freeze there is not a lot of scope for improvement.

It looked very much as though it was going to be a complete whitewash for the Mercedes team at the beginning of the year and the new regulations were set to produce some very boring racing. But recently there have been a few chinks in the bulletproof armour of the mighty German juggernaut.

The championship leaders have been the major topic of discussion during the holiday period, due to Lewis Hamilton’s decision to ignore team orders during the Hungarian round.

I’ve lost count of the number of polls I have seen asking fans what they think. It appears Hamilton has a large fan base, as all agree he did the right thing.

In this case I must concur: the call for him to give way to his team-mate Nico Rosberg was ridiculous.

On the other hand, he was given a direct order from the team and chose to disregard it.

Non-executive chairperson of Mercedes, Niki Lauda, has come out in support of the Brit, saying the team panicked at the time but management and Rosberg were not happy.

Following meetings behind closed doors, all the parties seemed to be reconciled.

The media were then informed that for the balance of the 2014 season team orders will be obeyed, even if it appears to be wrong to the driver. On the other hand, the Brackley-=based team confirmed that Hamilton and Rosberg are still free to race – strange, really, when an order can be issued at the drop of a hat to completely negate that. Let’s hope they will truly be able to fight down to the wire.

The Bernie Ecclestone saga continues and, as you are probably aware, the 83-year-old F1 chief has agreed to a Munich court settlement figure of $100 million (R1 billion), bringing to an end the trial that – if he was found guilty of bribery and incitement to breach of trust – could have resulted in a lengthy prison sentence.

According to Ecclestone’s lawyer, Sven Thomas: “It is a settlement without any conviction – the presumption of innocence is still valid. That was a condition under which I negotiated.”

A strange twist was the $1 million donation to a German children’s charity, with the balance of $99 million going directly to the Bavarian government.

So is Ecclestone off the hook? Well, as far as the state’s case is considered the answer is yes, as he cannot be retried on the same charges. But his $33 million offer to the German bank BayernLB, the original complainant, has been refused and there is a very strong possibility Bayern will institute a civil action.

So we could be seeing Ecclestone’s name in the headlines once again – for all the wrong

reasons.