The gloves are now well and truly off in the fight to be elected Mosley’s successor. The support of Prince Feisal was quite a decisive win for Ari Vatanen and could change the dynamic of the Middle East quite considerably. Mosley is openly supporting the other candidate, Jean Todt.

Prince Feisal has been hosting a conference this week in Amman on the future of motoring and motor sport in the region.

Sir Jackie Stewart played a prominent role in the conference, calling for a change of leadership. He is very close to the royal family in Jordan; the late King Hussein was godfather to Jackie’s son, Paul. Stewart is a long-time vocal opponent of Mosley.

Mosley’s letter warned that Vatanen’s recent negative comments about his governance and ‘autocracy’ would divide the FIA membership,

“Any thoughts that after this election everyone in motorsport can unite and work together can now be forgotten. It is not possible to make statements like Vatanen’s and then expect the victims of those insults to forget what has been said. The simple fact is that Vatanen will lose the election and lose badly, not least because he chose to denigrate the FIA and those currently in office.”

Prince Feisal is quoted in the Jordan Times saying, “Jordan has always maintained a strong relationship with the FIA president, so I am deeply disappointed by the content and the insinuations of his letter which have raised serious questions as to the credibility of the upcoming and future elections.”

“Jordan was delighted to welcome Max to Jordan for our inaugural World Rally Championship round last year, an event that I am pleased to report will return in 2010,” he said.

He called for the FIA to have an “ethics commission” and said, “I strongly propose that proper bidding structures and processes should be introduced for countries wishing to join major championships like Formula One and the WRC, which will further raise the bar in terms of their quality and organisation.”

The team principal is Tony Fernandes, the boss of Williams sponsor Air Asia. The team’s technical chief is Mike Gascoyne, formerly of Renault and Toyota. The team will be based on Norfolk initially, however as it will race under the Malaysian flag, it is building an R&D and manufacturing centre at Sepang, home of the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Danny Bahar, formerly Red Bull and Ferrari brand chief joined Lotus recently.

The team will use Cosworth engines, which means that USF1 might find it easier to move away from Cosworth onto a Ferrari or Toyota unit as even without them Cosworth will have the three teams it requires to make its F1 project viable.

The FIA statement says, “The FIA also received an impressive application from the BMW Sauber Team. However, given that BMW has announced it will withdraw its support in 2010, there are still uncertainties regarding the future ownership of the team.

“Nevertheless, the FIA considers that BMW Sauber’s application is of high quality and would constitute a competitive participant in the Championship. As such, it has awarded BMW Sauber the ’14th place’ in the Championship meaning that it will be entitled to fill any vacancy that arises on the 2010 grid.

“In addition, the FIA believes that a good case can be made for expanding the grid to 14 teams. The FIA will be consulting urgently with the existing teams regarding the introduction of an appropriate rule change to expand the grid to 28 cars in time for the first Grand Prix in 2010.”

I’ve heard that BMW is also thinking of using the Sauber base at Hinwil for an R&D center for electric vehicles. The full size wind tunnel there is a viable business in itself.