Much like the economy Formula One has gone through its darkest hour and thankfully someone has opened the blinds and let in the light that leads the way to a better future.

Since the departure of Honda at the end of last year much has changed and if I'm honest part of me is struggling to keep up, for some reason i keep expecting to wake up and be watching a 2009 season that takes off where 2008 left off with the right sized wings and the usual contenders at the front, but that's probably just me.

Anyway as I was saying F1 has changed and although it may not have been entirely necessary for the sport to nearly self destruct many fans are holding on to the belief that out of this will come a far stronger sport that is better for everyone involved. Whether that is the case remains to be seen but we can at least speculate on some of the short term results from this dispute.

The first result is that the teams care about F1 and its fans a lot, especially the manufactures. Even though some fans would prefer not to have the championship decided by who spends the most at least the teams were willing to acknowledge what the fans want. Some cynics may say that this was just the big teams attempt to win the sympathy vote but I believe that it was much more than that. After endless speculation as to which manufacture may leave F1 I feel that they cast those doubts aside when they announced the break away. Both Renault and Toyota have been linked with a move away from F1 in recent years yet alongside Ferrari it was these teams who were pushing ahead with the new series, with Flavio dealing with the commercial side and Howett being one of the more vocal opposition to the FIA.

Secondly Mosley's time has passed. Credit where credit is due Max reacted to the issue of safety in the 90's in a way no many other men would have and as a result F1 has not suffered a driver fatality since. Unfortunately when this crisis came along times had changed and Max hadn't kept up. Firstly as I mentioned before Max's reputation was still recovering at the time and he is not the feared man he once was. Secondly the teams are not just here to race anymore, they are united and they are more powerful than ever before and Max underestimated this. If he had been more careful he could have a budget cap in place months ago if he had acknowledged the teams were happy at £150 million rather than going behind there back and trying to set it at £40 million. Now Max is acting like a child with ADHD desperate for someone to listen to his threats about standing for another term. If he had kept up with the changes in F1 he could have left withy his head held high as the man who secured the future of F1 with a budget cap in place, instead many will remember him as the man who nearly killed F1.

The third conclusion is that Bernie is a shadow of his former self. Many predicted that Bernie would be the man to broker peace between FOTA and the FIA but instead he was very much left to play spectator and he didn't even appear to be any good at that as he seemed utterly bewildered when the media asked him about the possible breakaway series. I was also surprised to hear Flavio would be helping Bernie improve the show in years to come, now would the Bernie of the past allowed an assistant, even if it is a close friend, to be forced upon him.

Lastly, but I think most importantly, people still want to get involved with F1. The number of applicants to the FIA was astounding and although some of them were more plausible than others there were still some very plausible entries, such as Prodrive, that would be a credit to the sport and hopefully this is an indication that there is still an interest in Formula 1 and that in many peoples eyes it is still the pinnacle of motorsport.

Hopefully the optimists are right and F1 will improve for the better with grids that improve in both quality as well as quantity, a better spectacle that takes in to account the views of the fans and a break from the politics that allows us to enjoy the action on the track with the security the sport will still be the best in the world for years to come.