Vettel blags a free pass.

It’s a reasonable decision, and very Jean Todt-like. Perhaps it was best to draw a line under it, rather than have a cloud hanging over the sport until the International Tribunal heard the case. Indeed, the incident only highlights the need for reform in relation to the FIA’s disciplinary procedures. The International Tribunal is too lengthy; cases shouldn’t need to drag on for months. There is a gap between post-race investigation and the International Tribunal, there needs to be a process in-between that can handle simpler enquiries.

As an example, Spygate in 2007 absolutely needed the International Tribunal, given the complex technical and legal complexity of the wrong-doing and the 780-page dossier.

Personally speaking, the incident did not bring the sport into disrepute. Spygate almost certainly bought the sport into disrepute, it threatened F1’s credibility as a whole and it must be said, the FIA dealt with the case fantastically well. However, it does concern me that Vettel attempted to use his car as a weapon under Safety Car conditions. We only very recently had a terrible situation with Jules Bianchi under yellow flags. And reinforcing the message about conduct under yellow flags is at odds with the relatively light penalty issued during the Grand Prix. I think a further penalty should have been applied to a future Grand Prix, perhaps a lengthier stop-and-go, it works well in sportscars. It truly screws your race without going overboard and banning people.

It is very Jean Todt-like because Jean doesn’t like upsetting anybody; he wants everyone to be happy. This is unlike like his predecessor, Max Mosley, who had no issue with upsetting people. He did a lot of unpopular things, but wasn’t afraid of driving through change when the teams resisted it. I think Todt sometimes lacks that ability to just dominate a situation and stipulate how things will be done.

A good example of this is the qualifying car dispute in 2002. The teams used to make special cars for qualifying; they only had engines lasting 25 kilometres with very little cooling. Those cars were then rebuilt overnight to make them race-ready. Mosley wanted to make the teams qualify the car they raced; there was huge opposition to this from the teams. Even arbitration was threatened. Eventually the teams agreed to qualify the cars they raced, and now you won’t find anybody who wants the return of bespoke qualifying cars. At the time I disagreed with a few things that Mosley did, but in hindsight, he was right.

And far from Ferrari International Assistance, Mosley had a number of clashes with Luca Di Montezemolo in 2008 and 2009 with regards to the proposed budget cap. Ferrari was fiercely opposed to it, and the two men had a public slanging match for a good while. Ferrari still doesn’t like the testing restrictions, and Montezemolo declared F1 with the hybrid V6’s as “taxi-cab racing”. I think the FIA has introduced a lot of measures that have inadvertently harmed Ferrari’s competitiveness, so I don’t think the situation is as rosy as it appears.

Jean Todt needs to curb his obsession in making F1’s road relevant. To be brutally honest, the current engine regulations have achieved absolutely nothing, the very regulations that Todt pushed for. The cars sound dreadful, only one new engine supplier has entered the sport since 2014 – and disastrously so. Engine costs have ballooned for privateers, it is impossible for independent builders to develop a competitive powertrain, and even most of the largest car manufactures aren’t interested. There weren’t enough limitations on the scope of development, so when Mercedes spent years before 2014 developing their powertrain – the result was plain to see.

It alarmed me to read that Jean Todt thought that LMP2 challenging LMP1 at Le Mans was a good thing. He didn’t appear to be concerned that there were only five LMP1-H entries, all of which spent time in the pits getting repairs due to the bewildering complexity of the cars. That was a show in the pits, not on the race track. And a car from far cheaper category almost won the race. Due to the sheer cost of motorsport at this level, it’s impossible to F1 to react to constant changes in the car industry – especially at the moment when the future of automobile energy is far from decided. We risk losing one of motorsport’s key appeals; noise. The emotion and intensity of naturally aspirated units like the old V8’s and V10’s can’t be underestimated. One only had to hear them wailing around Goodwood last week to realise what we’re missing.

F1 should have retained the old V8’s but with greater KERS output, and developments in that direction. We would have got the best of both worlds; road relevance to an extent but the brutal noise of the old V8’s, with relatively controlled costs because the development peak had been reached in 2013 – the final year of the engine.

I was at Blancpain a few weeks ago and stood at a great spot at Brands Hatch that allows you to get close. The difference in noise between the turbo and naturally aspirated cars wasn’t a comparison. You’d have a flat-sounding BMW M6 come past, then an Audi R8 or Huracan would come past and words couldn’t describe the noise; that was motorsport – everyone loved it – young and old. All of this is obvious, but the pleasure of loud motorsport is becoming rarer.