Doors Slam on Mosley As Car Makers Join the Condemnation

The moment Max Mosley got himself caught in a tabloid sting at the weekend, those who have followed his progress to the pinnacle of world motor sport developed an intense interest in watching how this most agile of politicians, the owner of a barrister's qualifications and a silver tongue to go with them, would go about the business of extricating himself from a potentially ruinous scandal and retaining the presidency of the FIA, the federation of international motoring organizations and the governing body of world motor sport.

After four days in which an initial silence was followed by a partial denial and a threat of legal action, yesterday the door to his escape route appeared to be slammed shut when four of the major motor manufacturers with a direct interest in formula one issued statements condemning his behavior.

Of the four firms, the strongest words came from Toyota, whose grand prix team flies the flag for the world's biggest car manufacturer. "Toyota Motor sport does not approve of any behavior which could be seen to damage formula one's image, in particular any behavior which could be understood to be racist or antisemitic," it said. "Senior figures within any sport, including motor sport, must adhere to high standards of behavior. When all the facts are known, it will be for the FIA to decide whether Mr Mosley has met the moral obligations which come with the position of FIA president."

Honda said: "It is necessary that senior figures in sport and business maintain the highest standards of conduct in order to fulfill their duties with integrity and respect. The Honda Racing F1 team is extremely disappointed by recent events surrounding Mr Mosley and we are concerned that the reputation of formula one and all its participants is being damaged."

A joint statement from Mercedes-Benz, co-owner of Lewis Hamilton's McLaren-Mercedes team, and BMW read: "The content of the publications is disgraceful. As companies, we strongly distance ourselves from it. The incident concerns Max Mosley, both personally and as president of the FIA, the global umbrella for motoring clubs. Its consequences therefore extend far beyond the motor sport industry."

The fact that two of the manufacturers are German and the other two Japanese adds a certain piquancy to the affair, given that the News of the World's clandestine video appears to show Mosley - the son of the late Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of Britain's fascists before and after the second world war - indulging himself in sadomasochistic role-playing in the company of five prostitutes and with, according to the News of the World, strong overtones of Nazi concentration camps.

Mosley's initial statement, though not denying his involvement, made it clear that he planned to rebut any such interpretation. Yesterday he responded to the manufacturers' statements by alluding to the wartime records of the two German companies, both of whom made extensive use of slave labor during the Nazi era.

"Given the history of BMW and Mercedes-Benz," he said, "particularly before and during the second world war, I fully understand why they would wish to strongly distance themselves from what they rightly describe as the disgraceful content of these publications. Unfortunately they did not contact me before putting out their statement to ask whether the content was in fact true."

He also issued a call for an extraordinary general assembly of the FIA, to which 222 national organizations from 130 countries are affiliated. "The full membership of the FIA will be invited to attend the meeting at which the widespread publicity following an apparently illegal invasion of the FIA president's privacy will be discussed," the statement said.

The public statements from the manufacturers formed a stark contrast with Mosley's earlier claim to have received "a very large number of messages of sympathy and support from those within the FIA and motor sport and motoring communities generally". But he may yet find a way of persuading a libel jury that the manufacturers have followed the News of the World to the wrong conclusion.

Mosley is likely to claim that he was the victim of a set-up, that the use of the German language and of German-accented English ("She needs more of ze punishment!") were nothing to do with Nazism (he went to school in Germany after the war, and two of the prostitutes are said to have been German) and that the striped dress worn by one of the women was simply a striped dress and not an imitation Auschwitz uniform. He and the women, he may say, were merely acting out a standard incarceration and punishment fantasy in which the inspection for head lice was intended to reflect a standard prison protocol. He may also claim that a remark from one of the women - "He's serving a life sentence for crimes he's committed before" - is hardly consistent with a concentration camp scenario.

He will be pinning his hopes of survival on a belief that, without the Nazi connotations, which appeared to form such an explosive link to his family's history, this would be just another sex scandal, and an unwarranted invasion of privacy to boot.