And so the mystery goes on. Bumped into Bernie Ecclestone in the paddock early Saturday morning, which resulted in another chat about the British Grand Prix's impending move to Donington Park. The Formula One maestro swears he is not the money man behind the £100 million venture and that he is absolutely satisfied that the new circuit will be up and running in time for the first race in 2010.

He is about the only person I met in the paddock who believes that. The scale of the project is immense, given that a sod has yet to be turned, or a brick laid. So let us see.

What was amazing was the way that team owners gave such lukewarm support to poor, old Silverstone. After all, many of them - like Sir Frank Williams and Ron Dennis at McLaren - are members of the British Racing Drivers' Club, who own the circuit. Perhaps even they realised that the BRDC was fighting a losing battle and, in fairness to Bernie, the BRDC has not exactly proved light on its feet in a world where decisions are made in seconds, not years.

And there is no doubt that the animosity between Bernie and Max Mosley, the FIA president, on one side and Sir Jackie Stewart, when he was president of the BRDC, didn't help the cause one bit. We all remember Max's quip about Sir Jackie being a "certified halfwit" while Bernie reserves some of his best vitriol for the three times world champion. Imagine Bernie's face when he spotted Stewart swanning around the paddock on Friday as personal escort to the Duke of Kent, while the Silverstone world was being shattered by the Donington announcement.

Sir Jackie is treated like motor racing royalty sometimes at Silverstone, which led to one of Bernie's best asides (you might find this hard to believe but he is the best comedian in sport). Apparently, Sir Jackie alighted from his helicopter transport on Saturday morning to be greeted by a huge entourage of about ten people. "He won't get that treatment at Donington," Bernie quipped from the side of his mouth as he walked away.

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Peter Hain, the former Secretary for Wales, was wandering the paddock with Elizabeth, his lovely wife, but clearly not at his best after the debacle over his expenses for the Labour Party deputy leadership election. Not only was he forced to resign from the Cabinet, with a pile of legal bills to worry about, but Elizabeth's head-hunting business went down the pan soon afterwards as whispers circulated the Westminster village and clients deserted almost overnight.

Fortunately, the pair still have plenty of friends in Formula One so a day at the races was some light relief from their gloom.

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Met two associates coming up in the world. I first came across Stuart Dyble when he was an executive at Ford before moving on to Jaguar, playing some part in setting up the ill-fated Jaguar Formula One team. He later moved on to Simon Fuller's 19 Management, where he headed up the sports business, which, of course, includes David Beckham and England.

But Dyble has decided to strike out in partnership with Alistair Watkins, who was once the FIA director of communications, before launching into a series of marketing jobs, which included terms at the Honda F1 team and Team Alinghi, the America's Cup winners. They are already building up an impressive client roster in Formula One and beyond. Keep an eye on them.

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