"In 2002, Max could see what was happening with F1. There was the beginning of the GPWC, Bernie's issue with the banks and everything else. Max feared the time when the manufacturers would pull out and F1 would implode.

"I shared that view with him. Max was one of the supporters of the small, independent teams. He supported me in 2002 and 2003, but by the end of '03, he had clearly had enough of trying to tell the big teams that they had to look at costs, that they had to be prepared to supply engines to the independent teams, that the cost of being competitive in F1 had to be reduced to a point where you didn't need $400m to go racing, that if they didn't, the sport was ultimately going to become unsustainable.

"The independent teams, and even some of the manufacturers, were behind Max in this. They fully agreed.

"In the middle of 2004," he continued, "though, from the Monaco meeting onwards, it seems Max decided that the only way forward was radical change. When he found that the teams weren't going to bite, he decided to make use of Clause 7.5 of the Concorde Agreement - the safety clause.

"Don't forget, there was protection under the Concorde Agreement for the 3-litre V10 engine in terms of what Max could and couldn't change.

"I don't think anyone thought that these measures were really being brought in on safety grounds, as you only need to look at what Max has said. At Monaco, for example, he said the two things fundamental to the future of F1 were the single tyre supplier and the single ECU.

"In response to a question at the Monaco press conference, he said: 'Just to be clear, we cannot change the engine; that is, we cannot change it from a V10 to a V8. That is outside Concorde. We can't do that under safety. It cannot be done until 2008, without unanimous agreement.'

"This is a man who has claimed to be a champion of the small teams, yet now you've got the owner of the smallest team telling you that it's cost us a fortune with all these new regulations. These have put my costs up by 20 per cent, failed to save me anything, and made me around 3 or 4 seconds less competitive than I was, which was already bad enough.

"Let's think about the implications of these so-called 'safety' changes for a second," he continues. "We used to have seven sets of tyres a weekend. Tyre companies don't charge you any more or less for that. The only people to save money under the new rules are the tyre companies, as they don't have to produce so many tyres.

"The bigger teams have seen their testing costs increase enormously - except for Ferrari - because they've had to run 700-km distances on the (two-race) engine, and race distance after race distance to see if these one-event tyres are going to last. It has actually almost doubled the out-of-season testing mileage."

It's clear that Paul is getting angry at the very thought of this apparently contradictory state of affairs. "Sorry mate," he apologises, "but it's just not saving money.

"Max made an effort in Monaco (2004), got all the teams together and said, 'we're going to cut all this expenditure', but when the teams said, 'no, it doesn't work like that, Max,' he then introduced regulations that actually increase the costs.

"As for safety, in my letter to Max, I wrote, 'Max you're a lawyer and I respect you, but how on earth can you say, given the situation last year where you had two tyre manufacturers - both fantastic, ultra-competitive companies - taking it to the edge in an attempt to beat one another, that a single race weekend tyre contributes to a safer racing environment?

"Without wishing to be over-dramatic, I believe we saw a situation where (Jenson) Button could have been killed, or at least very seriously injured last year (Spa), if it hadn't been for the fact that (Zsolt) Baumgartner was alongside him. It was a bad enough accident as it was, but it would have been a monumental accident if the BAR had speared into the Armco or gone into the trees. Tyres fail for whatever reason, and we know of several occasions when that happened last year. Be it caused by debris or otherwise, surely this fact cannot be ignored.

"You've now taken those tyres away and introduced one-race tyres, and what is a likely scenario? Your driver charges down to the first corner, there's an incident, he locks up the brakes and flat-spots his tyres. The car's now vibrating, so what's he going to do - come in for a precautionary change of tyres? Of course not. He knows it's potentially the end of his race if he does, so he'll stay out there, put up with the vibration, and get on the radio saying, 'The car's undriveable. What do I do?' The team will come back, 'You're in the points. Keep going. Don't worry about it'. Well, we will find ourselves worrying about it if a tyre fails in such circumstances and, heaven forbid, goes into the crowd, with the result that someone gets seriously injured - or worse."

I have to ask, in Paul's opinion, what does he think Mosley's agenda is? The man is not a fool, far from it, so why is pursuing his current course?