Max Mosley's Homologation Game

Homologation. Crazy word, crazy concept. When I first heard Max Mosley pompously rolling it around in his mouth at a press conference I almost ruptured something inside (as I did when I first heard Lloyd Grossman coin the term "Tudorbethan" on Through The Keyhole).

Sadly though (and in a large part due to Mosley and the FIA), F1 is often now less exciting to watch than Through The Keyhole, and homologation could help drag the sport further into some new kind of dumbed-down dark age.

Homologation; the freezing of engine development, is yet another gem in Max's plans for the utter ninnyfication of the sport - and now apparently something as inevitable as it is undesirable.

The original arguments on freezing specifications and altering the longevity of engine were always framed as 'cost saving'- a worthy, yet probably untrue and certainly improbable justification.

The cost per unit of an engine is nothing compared to the full-blown development costs of an engine package. By moving his very very expensive goalposts around from v10 to v8, to lasting two weekends, then one, and to now move to a stage from whence they are frozen, Max clearly doesn't bring down costs - the budgets of small countries could probably be swallowed up in that kind of work.

Huge lunges at development and redevelopment against radically shifting rules are surely far more costly than ongoing development in a single direction.

Homologation seems yet another shift towards some peculiar Mosley-esque vision of a sport that dares to be the pinnacle of its kind by cutting back on technology, power, innovation and ooomph.

Yes... Ooomph. That thing certain car manufacturers refer to as Va Va Voom. F1 used to have it in spades - and by definition it should continue to have it in spades... bigger spades each year quite frankly.

What next? Limited V4s? Dragging down engine power and technological imagination may work for some things (though I have no idea what) but that doesn't make it right for F1. That way madness lies: It's already a sport, and it's called lawnmower racing.

To some, the 2008 landscape may be fantastically rational and as sensible as a pair of nylon slacks, but that's not why I watch F1. And as far as I'm aware it's not why most of us watch F1. To me its future looks pretty backward. If it regresses any further, it'll probably be classed as "Tudorbethan".