While Max Mosley, the supposedly outgoing president of the FIA, continues to redefine the concept of overstaying one's welcome, the Formula One teams have made it clear they are not bothered by his threats to carry on.

Mosley reacted with fury to media coverage of the deal struck in Paris on Wednesday between him, Luca Di Montezemolo, the Ferrari president, and Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One commercial rights-holder, by which he will stand down as president in October.

He demanded an apology from Di Montezemolo for implying in a subsequent interview that Mosley was a dictator and railed against what he believed was propaganda against him spread by the Formula One Teams Association (Fota) after the meeting. He said he would now keep his options for the future open. This was widely taken as a sign that he may not retire after all.

Following up on that threat yesterday, Mosley was back to his favourite trick of writing letters to his own membership and leaking them to the press. As always these were ambiguous in content and shot through with an almost hysterical sense of siege mentality, as Mosley tried once again to portray opposition to him as opposition to the organisation he works for.

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In some financial quarters there was momentary panic at the thought that Mosley might do a U-turn. But within the senior ranks of Fota his antics were being viewed as either irrelevant or self-defeating. The teams believe their agreement with him was sealed in front of the FIA's World Motor Sport Council and they do not believe it will be necessary for them to resuscitate their breakaway series at this juncture to force Mosley out.

There was confidence that if the FIA president continues to try to go back on what was agreed, he will be brought under control from within the FIA. If he tries to stand again later this year, the teams say they have “security” against that eventuality that can be brought into play. In the meantime there is no rush to intervene. “We will just let him wave around at the moment - it's basically someone screaming from the grave,” was how one source put it.

The teams are looking forward to doing business with Michel Boeri, the president of the FIA Senate, who they are expecting to meet at the Nürburgring during the German Grand Prix weekend in two weeks' time. They believe that he will be the main point of contact for Formula One business from now on.

In a separate development, Donington Park on the Derbyshire/Leicestershire border was granted final planning approval for the redevelopment of the track yesterday in preparation for next year's British Grand Prix. “It's great to have cleared another hurdle and to see the hard work of the entire team at the circuit paying off,” Simon Gillett, the circuit's promoter, said.