PARIS — Max Mosley’s shrewd political skills, deft maneuvering and brazen personality helped him preside over auto racing’s governing body for 14 years.
Ultimately, it was his stubborn defiance that proved to be his strongest trait.
Mosley resisted calls for his resignation for two months in the wake of a lurid sex scandal before winning a confidence vote Tuesday to remain president of the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA). At a specially convened assembly in Paris, 103 of the 169 member federations voted in favor of having him finish out his fourth term.
The 68-year-old Englishman had requested that his future be decided by secret ballot after he refused to resign in early April when a British tabloid reported that he had been involved in sex acts with prostitutes that involved Nazi role-playing.
“If they wish me to continue, I will continue — if they don’t, I’ll stop,” Mosley said prior to the vote.
And so, despite a barrage of criticism, Mosley will continue. It represents one of the biggest victories yet for one of motor sport’s most powerful figures.
After flirting with a brief career in Formula Two racing, Mosley stepped out of the cockpit and into the boardroom for good in 1969, and is credited with helping shape modern Formula One.
He co-founded the March F1 team before joining with Bernie Ecclestone to form a duo that would control the business and regulatory sides of motor racing.
They created the Formula One Constructors’ Association, whose power tussle with the Federation Internationale du Sport Automobile — the motor sport division of FIA — would eventually result in the signing of the Concorde Agreement, a measure that helped unite the bodies within the sport.
Mosley, an Oxford-trained lawyer who grew up in Ireland before being educated in France and Germany, ousted incumbent FISA president Jean-Marie Balestre in 1991 before being elected president of the FIA — a position for which he receives no salary — two years later.
Under Mosley’s presidency, the FIA set in motion major safety improvements since the death of triple world champion Ayrton Senna in 1994 — the last driver killed in the sport.
Mosley installed cost-cutting measures while also trying to give the sport a greener image by introducing biofuel technology.
He ruled FIA with an iron fist — even taking on former British Prime Minister Tony Blair over tobacco advertising in the late nineties — and was never far afoot from controversy and verbal sparring during his reign.
Mosley called triple champion Jackie Stewart “a certified half-wit” and presided over McLaren’s $100 million fine for its involvement in a spy scandal with Ferrari last year. He was later accused of favoritism after allowing Renault off without a fine despite the French team also holding sensitive information about Ferrari.
But his biggest scandal came in late March, with a video showing Mosley arriving at a London apartment and then engaging in various sex acts with several women, at least one in a prisoner’s uniform while speaking German. Mosley, who is suing The News of the World newspaper in British and French courts, admits hiring the five prostitutes but denies there were any Nazi connotations.
“I think most adults would say that whatever in that spectrum somebody does, provided it’s among consenting adults in private, concerns nobody but the people doing it,” Mosley told The Daily Telegraph. “I don’t see it as a moral issue, it doesn’t hurt anybody.”
Tuesday’s vote could still lead to a split within the FIA.
Germany’s motor federation (ADAC) froze all activities with the organization following the result, while the American Automobile Association has already warned of a breakaway movement. The federations from the U.S., Germany, France, Japan, Spain and Australia all voted against Mosley.
“We don’t think this type of behavior is appropriate for an organization that represents hundreds of million of motorists,” AAA president Robert Darbelnet said Tuesday. “I can’t think of an organization that would arrive at a result that was arrived at here today.”
In response to the criticism, Mosley has vowed to stay behind closed doors when he deals with world leaders in issues of motor safety, allowing his deputies to become the public face of the FIA presidency.
Some wonder if that is even going to be possible with many, including Formula One teams, expected to stay clear of him.
“We respect the democratic decision about Mosley — he’s done a lot of good things for the FIA,” Canadian Automobile Association president Tim Shearmon said. “(But) it will be tough. The statutes say that the president has to fulfill this role as the public face of the FIA. We have to review these statutes.”
Even old ally Ecclestone joined the growing chorus of F1 figures and motoring bodies that demanded Mosley resign for the scandal to which he will forever be linked.
Still, it was his supporters that proved stronger than his detractors.
“We voted for a very successful president that made this organization a very respected body,” Gueorgui Yanakiev, the president of Bulgaria’s national federation, said through a translator. “We think it is good for FIA if Max finishes his mandate.”
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