Have any of you actually looked at the policies both men were looking to introduce? Todt had a whole charter, looking to eparate the Presidency from the actual sport, with policies to reform the stewards, establish a disciplinary committee ad reform the Court of Appeal. He's got a very clear idea of what he wants and what he expects. His policies are sensible and well thought-out. As much as I would have liked him to win, Ari Vatanen was just shouting "CHANGE!" and had no substance - or at least not as much - compared to Todt. His policies were a case of "We'll sit down, and we'll talk. Then we'll take action based on what everyone thinks." Not the best way of doing things.
Management theory states there are two ways to introduce change. One is to do it gradually, introduce and impement new ideas in a constructed, logical order and does not do too much, too quickly. It allows the organisation to adapt and respond and assess those changes. It takes time, but it has a better chance of being accepted. This is the school of thought Todt is hailing from. It will take him time to make those changes, but there's less risk of everything collapsing the and FIA defaulting to its original state with the added problem that it will be less receptive to change. Personally, I think this is the wiser way forward.
The second theory is that you take everything and you change it all at once. This is what Vatanen was proposing. It's high risk, high reward: you an introduce changes quickly, but the problem is that you risk losing everything in one go. It works well in small businesses, but for an organisation as vast and complex as the FIA, the risks outweigh the gains. I think Vatanen could have made it stick, I honestly do. But I think he would just be creating problems - an with it, more work - for himself. He might have had a grasp of what the fans and the public wanted, but the FIA doesn't exist solely for the purposes of Formula One; if it did, Vatanen may have been a better way forward. But the FIA supports almost every international and national form of motorsport in some way, shape or form. Vatanen's proposals just weren't appropriate for the FIA as a whole, even if theymay have been suited to Formula One.
In the end, Jean Todt won because he had a better grasp on the big picture. But I think - and I admit I was wholly expecting this - that too many people are reading too much into Todt's association with and endorsement by Max Mosley.
And if I remember correctly Todt's GF is Michelle Yeoh? --- Randy
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