Max Mosley: I apologise for holding a press conference in this press room because a lot of people are here who are really just trying to get on with their work and are rather like a captive audience. Nevertheless, I will try and do the best I can.

First of all, this is the first Formula One Grand Prix that I have been to for the whole weekend for two years, so I thought it would be a good idea to volunteer to answer - or try to answer - questions because there is not a lot of opportunity to talk to journalists other than occasionally in the office. That's the purpose here. I don't have any great announcement to make.

In my absence, I'm sure you have all noticed that Mr. Alan Donnelly comes to the Grands Prix as my representative and it occurred to me that some of you might not know much about his background and it might be useful to give you a very very brief resume.

Mr. Donnelly was a member of the European Parliament from 1989 to 2000. He was the leader of the British Labour group in the European Parliament for several years. He was for seven years the chairman of the European Parliament committee for relations with the United States Congress. He was for five years the European Parliamentary spokesman on the car industry. He was chairman of the all-party Parliamentary Group of car users in the European Parliament. He was responsible for the European Parliament legislation on German Unification. He conducted the Parliamentary confirmation hearings for the governing board of the European Central Bank and he also chaired the transatlantic dialogue between the European and American car manufacturers. Of course, being the European Parliament spokesman on the car industry for five years is what brought him into contact with us. I'm very glad to have him at the Grands Prix, but of course his main work - he doesn't work full-time for the FIA , he has a consultancy so he is part-time with the FIA - is dealing with the relations we have with the car industry and the wider functions of the FIA. So that is Alan Donnelly, for those who didn't know, and you will see him around at all the Grands Prix and I know that a lot of you know him already.

That really is the only thing that I wanted to say. I can guess what some of the topics are that people will raise but it's probably more efficient if I endeavour to answer questions rather than to start making announcements. So who wants to ask the first question?

Q: I would like to know what is the status quo with Phoenix or DART or whatever you want to call it from the FIA's standpoint?
MM: The Phoenix situation is really quite simple. We believe that they don't have an entry in the championship. They think they do. They've gone to or are going to court in England to try and establish if they have an entry and no doubt this will be heard in the next few weeks.

Q: Could I ask you to confirm what we've heard which is that Phoenix was denied arbitration by the FIA, and I wonder if you could clarify the role of Mr Walkinshaw in the affair, because he appears to be the only person who represents the team to us or to anybody else?
MM: The first point; it's not true that we've denied them arbitration. On the contrary, we are telling the English court that they should go to arbitration rather than to court, because the Concorde Agreement is covered by arbitration, notwithstanding that we don't believe that they have an entry or come into the thing at all. I have no knowledge of any connection between Tom Walkinshaw and Phoenix other than a rumour that he intended to supply them with engines, but the person behind Phoenix is somebody called Nickerson and he's the person who made the application to the French court and got whatever it is they got from the French court.

Q: You've changed some of the rules recently, or at least the F1 Commission has and the World Council has backed it up. You've got an agreement with the teams not to play with the chassis for the next couple of years. Are you going to mess around with any of the other rules in the next year or so?
MM: Well, first of all, we never mess around with the rules. We give things careful consideration and go through the proper procedures. That said, just to clear one point up: the idea that somehow in Formula One the FIA changes the rules is a little misleading. We cannot change anything in Formula One other than matters to do with circuit safety or the appointment of officials or disciplinary matters. We cannot affect Formula One in any way (except in those areas) without going first to the Formula One Commission. In the Formula One Commission, the eleven teams have twelve votes, the promoters of the races have eight votes, the sponsors of the teams have two votes, the engine suppliers have a vote, the tyre suppliers have a vote and the remaining two votes, one is mine in my capacity as president of the FIA, and the other is of Bernie Ecclestone in his capacity as the commercial rights holder. Which means that unless you have a substantial majority of the teams in favour, you will not get something through. To pass a resolution, you need 18 of the 26 votes. All that's in the Concorde Agreement. So, to cut a long story short, everything that moves in Formula One, except circuit safety, disciplinary matters, and the appointment of officials, is subject to the control of the Formula One Commission, until the expiry of the Concorde Agreement which is not until 2008. The World Council has the right to refuse a decision of the Formula One Commission and send it back to the Commission for reconsideration. But in fact, as far as I can recall in the whole 21 year history of the Concorde Agreement, I don't believe that's ever happened.

Q: Thank you for that explanation. Are we going to see any changes in the regulations, for example, tyres next year, on the grounds of safety perhaps?
MM: Well, if we did make changes to the tyres, it would not necessarily be on the grounds of safety as such, it might be on grounds of anxiety about performance. But we are talking to the tyre companies, yes.

We are a little bit concerned that the cornering speeds are now reaching levels which are not reassuring and so we are now talking about taking measures to stop the cornering speeds going up too much beyond where they are now.