Today's announcement that the FIA is inviting tenders for a new feeder series F2, will surely come as a major surprise, not only to Bernie Ecclestone and CVC - which owns GP2 - but to those teams currently contesting the GP2 Series and any other participant in motorsport who know exactly how far 200,000 euros goes these days.

Unofficially, GP2 is the feeder series, and therefore many will look at today's announcement as another move in the slowly developing war between Max Mosley and Bernie Ecclestone.

However, earlier this year Pitpass reported a comment made by Bernie Ecclestone last year, which though originally thought of as a gaffe, might have been an early signal of what was to come.

In an interview with a British tabloid, talking about his plans for Queens Park Rangers (QPR), the football club he has bought with Flavio Briatore, Ecclestone said: "At QPR, we're in Formula Renault at the moment. Next, we want to move up to GP2 and then GP1."

At the time, Pitpass pointed out that this was either a rare mistake by the F1 supremo or something else, after all, would he really forget the name of the series he has virtually built, turning it into a multi-billion pound empire?

Other than the invite for tenders, and the outline as to the budget, today's announcement reveals little about F2. Will it be run as a support race to the F1 Grand Prix - surely unlikely to go down well with Ecclestone - or will it be run entirely separately?

Either way, Ecclestone and CVC will be as eager to discover more about F2 as the rest of us.