The FIA (or Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile to give it its full, inexplicably french, name) is an ominous association formed to represent motorists and motoring organisations. Its headquarters are at 8 Place de la Concorde, Paris (ring top bell), coincidentally just up the rue from one of the city's best bordellos.

The federation acts as the governing body for a number of motorsport series and championships, mostly in a venal or, if we're feeling charitable, incompetent manner. It should not be confused with the Fédération Internationale de l'Alcosport, which governs Drink-A-Long-A-Grand-Prix almost as badly.

Comprising 222 member organisations, the FIA can also boast a Senate, a Court of Appeal and a General Assembly and it wouldn't take a stretch of the imagination to see its activities as part of a sinister plan to get itself recognised as a sovereign state in its own right. It's not a million miles from how Hitler started, that's all we're saying.

Its decisions have at times left the FIA open to accusations of favouritism and manipulation and its credibility wasn't helped any by revelations that its married president, Max Mosley, was partial to sado-masochistic orgies involving more tarts than you can fit on one hand. Mosley, seeing no incompatibility between his behaviour and his position, failed to tender the resignation that many were keenly anticipating.

They claim to do a lot of work on road safety but we've never knowingly seen any of their campaigns.

Like the country they called home, Team US F1 had no history. Fittingly, they chose to base themselves in Charlotte, in one of the Carolinas, a place that has no connection with F1, other than coincidentally having the same names as a couple of grid girls who once briefly made Eddie Irvine's acquaintance.

Soon after the team's inception, it stated its aim to find two American drivers for the 2010 season. Its failure to do so was the source of much amusement in certain quarters and struck some observers as being almost as laughable as the decision to base an F1 team in the US when there isn't even a race there.

The team principal was a chap called Ken Anderson, whose 30 years in motorsport saw him as an Indy car designer, F1 team technical director and wind tunnel constructor.

His fellow director was a total arse called Peter Windsor, whose 30 years in motorsport journalism saw him get right up the noses of anybody who appreciates impartial reportage. He was, in every measurable way we could think of, the next Craig Pollock.

The team had looked unlikely to make it to the grid in 2010 since its inception and there was little surprise when news broke in early March that the team had notified the FIA that it would "not be in a position to participate in 2010".

Anderson and Windsor chose to delegate the task of telling their employees that they were out of a job, failing to have the decency or courage even to turn up at the factory for the announcement.

Which pretty much tells you all you need to know about them and how they ran their almost-team.