This article was penned well before editor Balfe saw fit to title an entirely unrelated piece with a Bob Dylan song. I had two choices - re-write or stick to my guns. Being that I have never yet been forced to re-write by said editor, I stuck to my guns and I make no apologies.

The rasping drawl of Bob Dylan gnawing his way though the title line of his song "The times they are a-changing" popped into my head a couple of weeks ago. At the time I was reading Pitpass' article about a <b>scathing editorial</b> which had appeared on Ferrari's web site and which I thought made some pretty explicit references to, and judgments about, the pending season and the actions of the FIA in the lead up to the 2010 F1 World Championship.

The times may indeed be a-changing, I thought to myself.

One short year ago, when FIA president Mosley was still in power, I personally doubt that ANY F1 team would have published that kind of content. Indeed I happen to think that long before such an item reached publication, legal guardians of the team would have spirited the author off to a quiet and padded place, burned all print copies of such thoughts and had the computer upon which they were authored sent to a crusher.

I say this because I lived through an era when, to me, the merest hint of dissent from within Formula One was expediently greeted with the FIA's trump card. I speak of that universal catch-all in the sporting regulations, the charge of bringing the sport into disrepute. During the Max era, that charge was oft-mentioned and always carried penalties which seemed to me near limitless and mightily draconian.

Perhaps the times they are a-changing? That was then and this is now.

Ferrari had their say and to date, there have been no official consequences. Yes there have been responses and replies smattered across the media but that's it. President Todt, for now, seems not so quick on the draw with the sporting regulations as his predecessor. Think what you will about Jean Todt but I've an idea that he's a man who's rarely bent to the will of others. Be he right or wrong, I have a feeling that he's a fellow who backs his own judgement. No bad thing in the Place de la Concorde perhaps?

Naturally there are those eager to note that a former Ferrari boss is now at the helm of the FIA and that as much imbues his old team with certain sense of safety. They are probably the same people who've crowed for ages that Ferrari has long been the beneficiary of special treatment at the hands of FIA. Me, I harbour a suspicion that President Todt's departure from Maranello may have been less agreeable than was ever made public. That perhaps Ferrari's recent outburst was a little more akin to testing waters with the new guy who was once an ally.

In the preamble to the most recent FIA presidential elections, I made a concerted effort in favour of Todt's main opponent, Ari Vatanen. In so doing, I necessarily disenfranchised his chief opponent, M. Todt. I did so primarily because of the apparent degree and manner of support offered to Jean Todt by the outgoing president and some incumbent FIA personnel.