Bad Max

7 reasons why Max Mosley was the worst thing to happen to Formula One

Max Rufus Mosley is the son of Britain’s favourite fascist Oswald Mosley, MP and founder of the British Union of Fascists. Oswald married and had three children with wife Vivien, and also had a long standing affair with his wife’s sister. After Vivien’s death Oswald married his mistress Cynthia in secret in the Berlin home of Joseph Goebbels, with no lesser personage than Adolf Hitler as a guest.

In his late teens Max was involved in his father’s new right wing political party the Union Movement. He went on to become a barrister, then founding member of the March motor racing team in the 1970s, and in 1991 was elected president of the FIA, world motorsport’s governing body.

• Budget caps and "the loonies”

There was many a row in the Noughties surrounding the subject of budget caps, designed to halt spiralling costs in F1. Max’s assertion was that teams’ extravagant spending was pricing new entrants out of the sport. When Flavio Briatore and others argued against Max’s proposals they were famously dismissed by him as “the loonies”.

What Mosley didn’t reveal to the world at the time was that he had been sanctioning secret deals with Ferrari to gift them an estimated £80million a year and special veto over technical regulations. Max’s proposal was for a cap of £40million a year for new teams, or half what he was giving to Ferrari just to stay in the sport. Who’s the ‘loony’?

• The Indy fiasco

The US Grand Prix at Indy in 2005 was an unprecedented, and ultimately needless disaster. Problems with Michelin tyres and a newly resurfaced track meant the Michelin rubber couldn’t take the wear and tear of the banked corner, and resulted in several dramatic tyre failures. Hamstrung by American law, Michelin couldn’t allow their teams to race on the circuit as it was. The problem was further compounded by the then no tyre change rule.

Fourteen of the twenty cars had no choice but to pull out, but not before offering every possible chance to stage some sort of viable race for the fans. They were prepared to start behind the six Bridgestone runners, and forgo any points for finishing, if the FIA would agree to a chicane being introduced to slow cornering speeds. Races had had last minute track changes on safety grounds before.

As a hundred thousand odd fans waited in the stands, and many more millions sat at home, the looming fiasco was kept from them till the six cars left the start line. Mosley steadfastly refused any sort of compromise to stage a race, and even threatened to sue the Michelin shod teams for not turning up with suitable tyres! As a result unsuspecting fans were given a sham instead of a show, and Formula One left the United States altogether in 2007. Responding to fan fury over the ‘race-that-wasn’t’, Mosley called them “idiots who don’t know what they’re talking about.”

• Crashgate

During the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, Renault driver Nelson Piquet, Jr.  crashes his car, instigating a safety car which eventually allows team mate Fernando Alonso to take an unexpected win. The following year Piquet admits that his team bosses had ordered him to crash deliberately to facilitate Alonso’s victory. Team principal Flavio Briatore and chief engineer Pat Symonds are found guilty and thrown out of the sport for life and five years respectively. (This was later overturned on appeal, due to FIA incompetence).

The team as a whole, however, was handed a disqualification from the sport, bizarrely suspended for two years in the incredulously unlikely event that they ever tried the same trick again! So a team that deliberately puts idrivers, track marshals and trackside fans in serious jeopardy gets away effectively scot free, while another found in possession of a rival’s technical documents suffers the harshest penalty ever handed out in sporting history. Now read on...

• Spygate

Following the 2007 Australian Grand Prix Ferrari engineer Nigel Stepney tips off McLaren’s chief designer Mike Coughlan that the red team had been running an illegal floor. McLaren ask for clarification, and though the part is found illegal and banned, no punishment is dished out. Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen wins and team and driver keep their ten points. 

Later in the same year Stepney steals a 780 page document from his Maranello employers containing a gold mine of technical and strategic data, and passes it on to Coughlan. Coughlan then shares some insights with Fernando Alonso and test driver Pedro de la Rosa, but no technology finds its way to the cars. During a spat between team principal Ron Dennis and a petulant Alonso, the driver attempts to blackmail his boss with a threat of exposing new information to the FIA. When the espionage is fully investigated McLaren are fined a jaw-dropping $100milion and stripped of all constructor points for the season.

Fair enough, cheating is cheating and the team deserved punishment, although many in the sport regard it as rather heavy handed, to say the least.

Contrast this with a similar case at Renault at the close of the same season. It is discovered that Renault have a raft of McLaren technical data loaded onto their mainframe computer system, including drawings of McLaren’s shock absorber, fuel system, mass damper and seamless shift transmission.
Action taken by Mosley and the FIA: none whatsoever.

• Sir Jackie Stewart - “certified halfwit”

Triple Formula One World Champion, and tireless champion of safety improvements in the sport, Sir Jackie Stewart made the fatal error of speaking his mind over what he called the “unjustifiable” McLaren Spygate penalty.

At a media lunch Mosley responded in typically mature fashion;
“It’s annoying that some of the sponsors listen to him because he’s won a few championships. But nobody else in Formula One does — not the teams, not the drivers. He’s a figure of fun among drivers. He goes round dressed up as a 1930s music hall man. He’s a certified halfwit.”
Max Mosley – certified fuckwit.

• The Martin Brundle libel writ

Commenting on Spygate, then ITV commentator Martin Brundle speaks his mind in his Sunday Times column. He intelligently details the facts and questions the apparent double standards. Mosley hits straight back with a libel writ against Brundle and the newspaper.

Mosley then writes to ITV bosses and urges them to dispense with their commentator’s services on the grounds that his commentary is “not up to standard”! And in October 2008 the Daily Mail reports;
“Alan Donnelly, the official representative at races of FIA chairman Max Mosley, has been trying to dissuade BBC executives from employing Brundle, who has been at odds with the governing body since he questioned their handling of last year’s McLaren Spygate affair.”

Consider the facts. Martin Brundle has won universal fan acclaim and an unprecedented six Royal Television Society Awards for sports broadcasting. Max Mosley will be mostly remembered by the general public for something other than motorsport...

• Just call me ‘Spanky’

Mosley’s writ against Brundle and the Sunday Times ired not only the journalist and paper, but seemingly the Times’ owner, Rupert Murdoch. In March 2008 his other paper the News of the World published lurid accounts, photos, and online video of Mosley skulking into a basement flat and indulging in S&M sessions with five hookers. On the video prostitutes are seen dressed in black German prison guard uniforms and speaking with German accents to their stripe suited ‘prisoners’, at one stage inspecting their heads for lice. One of the more dramatic moments comes when the court is played a recording of part of this game, in which Mosley and hooker ‘B talk in German while another woman – identified as ‘A’ – protests, in English: “But we are the Aryan race, the blonds.” 

The revelations lead to strong condemnation from all quarters, from Bernie Ecclestone, (initially at least), teams and drivers, motor manufacturers and sponsors and fans worldwide.

Here are some of the reactions from those involved in the sport.

Martin Brundle: “The specific detail of the scandal surrounding him is largely irrelevant, in my view. The sporting regulation he has used over the years to keep teams in check relates to bringing the sport into disrepute. If you live by the sword, you die by the sword. Sitting on the fence on this issue for any of us inside the sport is not an option. We must condone or condemn the situation he finds himself in. Mosley’s position as president is untenable.”

Jody Scheckter: “There is absolutely no question that Mosley should resign. From a purely motor racing point of view you can’t have somebody like this running the sport.” 

The Crown Prince of Bahrain, in a personal letter to Max: “Under the current circumstances it would be inappropriate for you to be in Bahrain at this time.” (Mosley was barred from the 2008 Bahrain Grand Prix).

Sir Jackie Stewart: “The FIA involves motor clubs from all around the world, with so many different religions, different cultures and sensitivities. If Mosley had a government position in Britain, the US or Germany, or was chairman of a public company or head of the Olympic committee, he would have already gone. He would not have waited, he would not need to be told, he would know it was the correct thing to do and I am surprised he is still there.”

BMW and Mercedes statement: “The content of the publications is disgraceful. As a company, we strongly distance ourselves from it. This incident concerns Max Mosley both personally and as president of the FIA. Its consequences therefore extend far beyond the motorsport industry.”

Bernie Ecclestone: “What people do privately is up to them. I don’t honestly believe this affects the sport in any way... I think Max was probably just taking the piss.”

Mosley of course refused calls to stand down, and fought and won a case for libel against the News of the World, the judge ruling that there were no Nazi overtones involved in the orgies. German uniforms and accents, black and white prisoners’ garb, verbal mentions of Aryan races. No Nazi overtones. Fair enough then.

In July 2009 Mosley finally and reluctantly stepped down as president of the FIA. Mean-spirited, acid-tongued, arrogant beyound belief, Mosley claims his legacy is in upgrading safety in both motorsport and the European car industry. But type the words 'Max Mosley' into Google and you’ll soon see what his actual legacy is...