Oh, dear God, will the crucifixion of Formula 1 never end?
We thought there was peace and that the problems would be solved. The dealmakers could get back to deal-making and the sport could begin to lumber forward again.
Alas, that was an illusion. Once again there is uncertainty. Deals are not going to be done because no-one knows where the sport is heading again. Max Mosley’s letter to FOTA President Luca di Montezemolo saying that he is reconsidering his decision to stand down as FIA President in October, was leaked to the media last night. Mosley claimed in this letter that he has decided on this course of action because of what he called FOTA’s “deliberate attempt to mislead the media” after the deal was struck on Wednesday, regarding the role of Michel Boeri, the president of the FIA Senate, who was initially rumoured to be taking over all F1 negotiations for the FIA. That rumour lasted just a few hours and no-one is now seriously suggesting that anyone other than Mosley is at the helm.
However Mosley has seized upon this as a reason to change his mind. This creates the impression that he is clutching at straws.
The FOTA reaction to the letter will likely take us back to where we were before the FIA World Council meeting on Wednesday with the disgruntled teams once again heading off to create their own World Championship. One cannot imagine that they will risk ignoring Mosley’s threat to stand again.
What is needed in F1 is peace and sensible discussion about the future and the letter – based on this occasion on what appears to be a personal matter – Mosley is threatening the equilibrium of the sport again. If the FOTA teams react by saying they are breaking away again then the FIA will once again be faced with the decision of whether it wishes to destroy Formula 1 in order to keep its president, or decide that the president may have gone too far and find a way to settle the problem.
It is very clear that FOTA does not wish to replace the FIA as its sanctioning body. This has been said over and over again, but the problem is Mosley’s management style. Although the FIA is a long-established institution, and has some influence in areas beyond the sport, its fundamental relevance and value comes from its sporting involvement. The F1 World Championship is key to that. Protecting the integrity of the FIA is thus the key point for the federation and there is now a clear choice of whether Mosley stays or goes.
The Paris deal seems to have had little to do with the FIA – with Mosley, Montezemolo and Bernie Ecclestone hammering out a compromise in a back room and the World Council then agreeing to it. What happened behind closed doors in Paris on Wednesday remains secret but after the meeting Mosley said he would not seek re-election. That seems to have been enough for the problems to have been solved.
Mosley is obviously upset by the interpretation in some sections of the media that the settlement with FOTA was a major political defeat for him, arguing that he achieved what he wanted. This is true, but only up to a point. The fact remains that much of dispute was settled before the Wednesday meeting and that the real sticking point was the question of governance and, from FOTA’s point of view, the presence of Mosley himself.
If there was a problem with what was said after the World Council, it would have been wiser if the FIA rather than Mosley himself had written to FOTA. By doing it himself Mosley will underline the perception that he thinks of himself as the FIA. He may not like that interpretation, but that is very much how it is seen in the F1 world, and by fans across the world.
If the dispute does revives, there will be no doubt about the key issue. There will be no hiding behind budget caps. If the presence of Mosley as FIA President was only one issue beforehand, it will now become the central question.
Can anyone, anywhere within motorsport not now see with absolute clarity, that the major problem facing F1 at the moment is Max Mosley’s ego? Certainly, there are many other issues, but how can the FIA not give him the elbow after this show of geriatric petulance? Dammit. Driven to drink on a Friday. Mosley you fiend!
Not a surprising move. The surprising part is how quickly it happened. Declaring in October a “grave emergency” which requires his remaining at the helm in perpetuam “for the good of the FIA” would have been more in the style of magisterial chaps such as Mosley.
Evidently, he has simply lost it.
He was clear of all this with at least the fig leaf (no snickers, please) of a “win”. Now he puts the FIA in the position of being a laughingstock if, having accepted his original decision as to his future, it lets him stay on. The FIA is going to have to force him out.
But more likely Luca and Bernie will trudge back to that Paris hotel room and calm him down. Perhaps if they promise him a hundred foot statue in the Place de la Concorde (rather than the mere fifty footer previously suggested) they can seal the deal, and the casket as well.
I think Mosley and Bernie are BOTH harmful to F1. Time for them both to be swept aside. Perhaps only then F1 would worry less about the $$$ and more about the sport. The races this have been boring, and I don’t follow and watch F1 to be bored.
I want to watch the best drivers race the best cars on the best circuits under fair rules. Spa, Monza, Silverstone, Suzuka… is that too much to ask?
I think FOTA might be the way forward. Jettison Max and Bernie and, god forbid, go racing!
I admire you for having the strength to continue posting, Joe. I half expected you might ignore the idiocy and only post again when someone, anyone, does something relevant to motor racing. One thing is keeping me sane – having a functioning memory. Max, Bernie, Luca, Flav and the rest, why would anyone believe a single word they say? Seriously, one single word? Connivance, stupidity, ego, insanity – who cares? They have shown a hundred times that they believe the public are there to be milked if possible, and ignored or lied to, whichever lazy route suits the moment.
The inside story I’d like to hear about is the view from the frontline, in the teams. It’s ok for us, this is just entertainment (?), what about the poor guys who work in F1? They’re having to stand by and watch, day by day, while a handful of (insert your own term)s play about with their livelihoods and, in a lot of cases, something they’ve invested their hearts and lives in. Perhaps there’s work in the darts industry – there’s a sport with some credibility.
Max can call people “certified half-wits” and “loonies” but if ever a word is spoken of him he shoots off. He is clearly a vindictive hostile man. But he made a blunder here…
FOTA “not schmota” are done with Max. Nothing is signed yet. Max will only add to his humiliation. Now I am sure FOTA will required Max’s head on a platter in the form of a signed document before they sign on to any deal for 2010 and beyond. Max should just have deflected the comments and disappeared with what little dignity remains. Now it will be a formal beheading or no deal. Stupid Max, real stupid.
Everywhere i read, i see a certain hostility towards Max Mosley in the comments.
even when he did finally get the deal hammered out 2 days ago, he was considered a gimp. i don’t get it. he has a point, it might not be a totally logical one given the time frame, but he does have a point.
I’m not one who thinks Mosley is the proclaimed God of motor sport, there are plenty of regulation changes that i wish someone would undo. but in the specific events of the deal that was hammered out, FOTA’s arrogance overshadowed Mosley’s humble reaction to no winner or losers.
That fault lays squarely in Monti’s lap as he failed to be very clear and diplomatic while handling the press. Other Fota members I’m sure are to blame to let this we are the winners stance to be displayed in the press.
surely Fota haven’t won neither did the FIA, if anyone did win it was the fans that were finally put at rest fromteh fears of a 60 year old sport/hobby/heritage be torn to shreds over money. because in the end it’s not about money, it’s all about the money.
i just hope Monti gets off his prancing high horse and issue some sort of apology so that the game can continue and then FOTA can celebrate and gloat as much as they want once Mosley retires….
I must of said this earlier, I really appreciate your blog Joe…
I’ve just discovered an anagram of Max Mosley…
Max Mosley= Complete wally
OK, so I’ve cheated a little bit, but the truth of the statement more than makes up for it.
How sad, there may have been rejoicing that F1 was saved from a breakaway, but personally I was disappointed in a way.
This statement from Max when I can’t remember yourself directly quoting a FOTA source about what was going on, is more than frustrating.
There was hearsay and innuendo granted, but Mosley is going to renege on the deal on that?
Joe I know that you have been saying that the sport that you (well all of us to be fair) love can’t survive a break away, but can the sport survive Max?
I think he just wants to go down in a blaze…he flat out acts like a child and it is really pathetic. I do not understand how such an intelligent and accomplished man can do these things and self-destruct like this. Perhaps he is going ‘looney’ himself?
What does Max expect from the press after getting his name in the papers like he did last year?
Now he’s released more letters to the World Motorsport Council. He seems as though he’s encouraging the FOTA teams to set up a rival championship… again. Why is he so determined to cause chaos and mess things up. I think anyone who even vaguely agrees with what he is saying is the true loony. His already questionable reputation has been absolutely decimated in the last 18 months. Why the **** does F1 have to put up with such a dispicable character?
Will we never be rid of this gnome?
I keep trying to dream up some decisive blow that FOTA or the other players could deliver to end Max’s foolishness… But before the fantasy can really gel, it seems more likely that they can probably just ignore him.
Imagine for a moment that Max said some more intemperate things over the weekend. (Not hard to imagine, is it? As noted before, this is a man who has a personal fascination with what it means to say naughty things to people.) So then imagine that FOTA held a meeting on Tuesday and decided to run a breakaway series again. Eventually Bernie would hire a drifter to hit Max over the head with a rock, just to save on legal fees.
I really, really hope that Joe is correct about “clutching at straws.” In months ahead we may be grateful for this clutching: It may make the retrospective view of Max’s career even more humiliating, kind of like Michael Jackson’s 2007 nose job.
It is obvious that Mosley has no intention of leaving FIA/F1 without being forced by his own people. But i can’t see that happening because their are so many people in FIA and WMSC who believe that FOTA are trying to undermine the FIA.
Who needs soap operas and professional wrestling when we have Formula One’s politics. My word, it is NEVER going to end.
If FOTA will not accept Mosley and Mosley can’t be trusted to go (which anyone who knows him would have predicted), then a new series seems inevitable. The key to that, I suggest, may be CVC and FOM. If CVC/Bernie can have at least a sensible part of the cake,a new series becomes relatively simple.
Agreed, it leaves the FIA in effect with nothing.
There was a similar situation brewing in 1973/74 (which really allowed Bernie to form FOCA and oust that nice chap Mckenzie who ran it until ’74) and that got solved with the promise of additional money and a rewriting of the Geneva agreement.
It seems to me that the FIA really is just Max’s .
I cannot understand that the others that make up the FIA have not removed him from office.
It seems to me to be a group of ineffectual people who need help from an angry old man.
FOTA should leave, start their own series, have CVC go broke and sell them the rights for cheap and then come in the back door to own F1.
Max will be gone, Bernie will be gone and all will be good.
Coming soon to a theatre near you…
MAD MAX 2: The Reckoning…
This time it’s personal.
So long as the FIA has a major influence in F1 we will have these problems. Just now the problem is Mosley but before that when Balestre was president we had the same problems.
The FIA needs to sanction F1 and to be responsible for licensing tracks and drivers and that is all. It does not need to be involved in making the rules and administering the sport. F1 can only succeed long term as an independent championship.
Unfortunately FOTA gave their negotiating position away for a promise of some magic beans. How anyone in any team can have faith in an agreement achieved behind closed doors between Mosley, Ecclestone and de Montezemolo is beyond me. We are all aware of the results of previous similar discussions.
If FOTA wanted a negotiated deal they should have insisted on everything being signed, sealed and delivered before any public statement was made. To go public after a cosy little chat was a juvenile mistake and now no-one is going to take them seriously if they threaten to breakaway again.
A lot of people seemed happy that a breakaway had been avoided and compared the situationg to the CART-IRL split. I think this is the wrong analog. The FOTA breakaway was more like CART taking over from USAC and that was a massive success until Tony George decided that he wasn’t happy.
FOTA representatives over the Silverstone made many comments about how the new championship would be better for fans including things such as cheaper ticket prices. I hope these are included in the deal they have done or they are going to have a lot of discontented fans who will feel used. The team principals could find out that they are as popular with the fans as Mosley and Ecclestone.
There is only one loonie loose in F1, he can even boast a movie to his name.
Can we start a fan based “go home Max” movement? This guy has some ego! Max you lost the battle and the war. GO AWAY!
Good article.
I, too, am perplexed by Mosley’s actions. For being such a cagey politico, why didn’t Mosley simply state that he had fixed F1? He could do several interviews, stating that he had saved F1 by adding 3 new teams. Reporters may not have agreed with this assessment, but from a PR prospective, Mosley could have turned lemons into lemonade.
Now the whole thing looks like it is out of control, again. Poor Max may be loosing is PR accumen.
A friendly Medoc helps, PofD. This has gone far beyond anything rational and has deteriorated to ridiculous. I’ve seen teenage girls argue over boyfriends in a more civil and reasonable manor. Mad Max behaves as Petulant Maxi.
The sport which was on the cusp of rehabilitation has relapsed into absurdity. And not even a race this weekend to distract. Sigh . . . pouring another glass . . .
No one else seems to admit it publicly for fear of FIA remonstration but this has been the crux of the debacle for far too long.
Will the boys in the back room please take take note and act accordingly in the manner of an International Sporting body… please!
From an outsider’s (American) viewpoint, this whole dust-up appears ridiculous. Why does Mr. Mosely take everything personally? Why does he go on “jihad” every time someone questions his decisions? Why does WMSC and FIA Senate rubber-stamp everything Mr. Mosely dictates? Finally, how did everyone involved allow this to happen?
You have a rule-enforcement authority trying to dictate commercial matters. If you piss-off this authority, they have a long record of coming after you with draconian judgments (McLaren? $100 Million?).
You have a commercial rights-holder sucking all the money out of the sport (not for the purposes of reinvestment, but to pay off a huge loan).
Last, you have the teams, who helped create this disaster long ago, by signing up to Concorde Agreements because there wasn’t any other framework that would codify what they could, or could not do.
Bah! Humbug!
I am not sure that Nick would appreciate me posting this one. How do you know he is ex-Company?
Joe — You said some things in the Aside podcast recently to the effect that there are things to be grateful to Mosley for (besides the old March team).
What are they? Did he play a strong hand in tightening up the safety, or would that have happened anyway?
If anyone can offer pro-Max points, or even just a link to a responsible, thorough defense of this guy, I’d appreciate it.
Without a close study of the sport in recent decades, he looks like an indisputable liability for everyone involved… Especially for the people who risk blood and treasure, not just amusement.
Hi Joe,
I am just reading the interview with Herd in the free GP+ edition (it is good, I like it). Maybe Max Mosley’s latest outburst is the result of the fact FOTA/Luca prefer a president without F1 experience, but he surely feels a new president must have F1 experience, as he himself has in abundance with March. I could imagine he favors Todt, as Todt was in charge when Ferrari broke the ranks of the manufacturers af few years ago. Ferrari not wanting Todt might even sweeting the bargain.
now that is a new word, sweeting…..
Who the hell are all the other people working in the FIA?
Apparently they’re all clamouring for Max to stand as persident again. But why do we never hear this except from the mouth of Max himself. He’s like some sort of deranged Willy Wonka in an office staffed by Oompah Lumpahs. I don’t actually believe that there is anyone else working in the office in Paris.
On a serious point though, how can any of the rest of the FIA seriously think that Max is worth protecting. Can’t they see that the quickest route to peace and stability is to dump him and quick. Do any of them possess a backbone FFS? They act like the FIA is the equivalent of the US Congress not just a sporting federation. If the Roman senators could conspire to assassinate Julius Caesar why can’t they dislodge Max…”Et tu Bernie?”
Max has presumably wined and dined most of the international representatives who constitute the larger voting body of the FIA. As a smooth-talking Paris attorney, I’m sure Max’s flattery is potent stuff to a hillbilly from Madagascar or whatever, where the hillbilly’s uncle owns a small motorist’s club. These constituents aren’t involved in Bernie’s contracts with the FIA.
This remains Bernie’s problem to solve. Ecclestone should have twisted the knife just a couple more times during the meeting last week. I’m certain that’s what Luca is expecting him to do now.
http://www.petitiononline.com/fofa01/petition.html
May I post this link?
Hasn’t it been quiet. Me thinks something is afoot.