These, according to the latest accounts, are paid a total of $19.8m.But CVC may not need to cut costs in F1 to make its money. FOH’s cash-generating subsidiary, Formula One Administration (FOA), has not paid a dividend since it was incorporated in 1999. It has been restricted from doing so under the terms of the bond deal, on which FOA is making the repayments, so profits have been accumulating in the company’s reserves.The $924m now in the coffers must have been a big attraction to CVC, and it has even been suggested that the firm may replicate Mr Ecclestone’s masterstroke and take out another bond backed on future revenues to get an early payday.CVC may not be able to match the $1.4bn F1 raised in 1999 when 10-year contracts were in place, but it could score twice with a flotation.Industry insiders are cautious about forecasting when a listing might take place given that F1’s last attempt was run off the road by the EC. Nonetheless, CVC’s credibility could help get a market debut off the grid, with estimates of a possible value ranging from $1.5bn to $3bn – not a bad return on its investment.It has taken a decade for the City to embrace F1. And with the commercial squabbles behind it, CVC has the chance to put the sport back on track.. When Kylie Minogue sent a message of thanks to an awards ceremony last week after being voted woman of the year by Glamour magazine, she noted wryly, “The last year has been my least public.”

But arguably it’s been the most important year of her life. Diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2005, the 38-year-old singer immediately issued a press statement and cancelled her Showgirl tour.

We’ve had dance Kylie, electro-clash Kylie, retro Kylie, even indie Kylie, but the way she’s handled her illness and treatment has been her most remarkable incarnation yet. Not only has she showed real dignity, she has refused to be turned into a triumph over tragedy story.
After a partial mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the prognosis looks good. She is recording a new album and is tipped to headline at next year’s Glastonbury Festival, but there is no talk of miracle cures; rather she insists she is taking “baby steps”.Nor is she about to rush up the aisle with her boyfriend of four years, film star Oliver Martinez. “I don’t have that sense of urgency,” she told an Australian newspaper last week, in her first interview since her illness.

As for the gruesome fascination with her fertility, she says, “Yes, I feel broody – it’s only natural. If and when it happens, then great.”As a pop star, Minogue’s media exposure was strictly controlled. Glamorous photos were churned out but the singer rarely spoke to the press. Half- woman, half-cartoon, she was never a spokesperson for any cause “What does Kylie actually think?” we wondered. That emptiness was also her enigma.All the more commendable then, that faced with a brush with mortality, she has handled it so brilliantly. Few stars go public about cancer – especially one whose sexuality is so key to her image – but from the moment she was diagnosed, Minogue has been totally open.Throughout her treatment, and mindful of her influence on other women, she has refused to endorse quack cures. Minogue has insisted that medical science should be at the heart, not just of her own treatment, but of that of any cancer sufferers who look to her as a role model.In the past Minogue’s freakishly perfect body (5ft 1in, with the world’s most famous bottom) has been used as a stick to beat normal women She has always been “other”.

But now for the first time, she’s made herself part of the female constituency. “I think of all of my past images,” she said last week, “and none of them are like me. I’m just like any girl and I have the same anxieties and issues.”Although Kylie has always embraced the market (“I think to a degree it’s fair to say that you’re a manufactured product”), her capacity for reinvention is staggering. There have been many cutting-edge collaborators, including the photographers Stephane Sedanoui, Wolfgang Tillmans and Pierre and Gilles, and the designer John Galliano, who described her as a “blend of Lolita and Barbarella”.Kylie Ann Minogue was born in Melbourne in 1968 to an Australian father and Welsh mother. A twisted ankle suffered in the World Team Cup at Dusseldorf and exacerbated at Roland Garros may prove a barrier to Roddick’s movement and ambitions, however.Injuries sustained in Paris by Mario Ancic and Novak Djokovic have meant their withdrawal, but a Stella debut for Ivan Ljubicic, hero of Croatia’s Davis Cup triumph last December and a Roland Garros semi-finalist, will help redress those absences, as will the presence of Lleyton Hewitt, twice a Stella champion, James Blake, the New Yorker with a British mother, Fernando Gonzalez, the sixth-seeded Chilean with the ferocious forehand, who should play Greg Rusedski in the second round, France’s Sebastien Grosjean and his exciting 20-year-old compatriot, Gael Monfils.For Murray, the draw is encouraging.