A Frenchman and a Finn will enter into battle to replace Max Mosley once his reign as president of FIA’s governing body ends in October. First to announce his candidacy was former world rally champion Ari Vatanen of Finland, who on July 10 said he was ready to answer the requests coming from "many FIA member clubs". A week later, another former champion and the legendary boss of Ferrari’s Formula One team, Jean Todt, also decided to join the race for Mosley’s job and by doing so making clear what would the two former champions’ concepts be.

When Vatanen announced his decision, he said that it was time for a change. His words did not come as a surprise, given the ongoing saga with Mosley under pressure from F1 teams not to stand for re-election in October because of his plans to introduce a budget cap and further rule changes for 2010. The drama reached a boiling point a few month ago when eight F1 teams – Ferrari, McLaren, BMW Sauber, Renault, Toyota, Red Bull, Toro Rosso and Brawn GP – formed the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) and threatened to break away in a separate championship, only to end when a peace agreement was struck on June 24, which stipulated that Mosley would not run for a fifth four-year term.

Because of this development, Vatanen’s words on the need for change can be easily interpreted as following the eight "renegade" teams’ policy, especially since he quoted the "many requests coming from FIA members" as the main reason for entering the race for the job. Another giveaway was FOTA’s statement from June 25, when it said that a neutral figure should govern the sport. As a former rally champion with a background in European Union politics, Vatanen certainly fits the profile.

Todt, on the other hand, was immediately endorsed by Mosley as his preferred successor. "Todt would be the ideal person to continue and extend the work of the past 16 years," Mosley said on July 15, with Todt himself confirming the close ties between the two by saying a day later that it was his intention to "continue and expand the outstanding work of president Mosley".

In other words, the election of Mosley’s successor threatens to become a sequel to the battle Mosley and FOTA have been fighting throughout the year. This means that when the FIA general assembly, the supreme executive body of the organisation, meets in October, the votes of all presidents of each of the FIA’s member clubs and national organisations, will be extremely precious. Given that in 2005, when Mosley won his last term, all voted unanimously in his favour, FOTA will have to prepare for battle if it does not want to simply replace Mosley with someone who would follow in his steps, as Todt promises to do.

And so, the two men who worked together earlier in their careers – Vatanen raced for the Peugeot rally championship factory team that Todt was the head of in the 1980s – look set to meet as competitors now.