Mosley's Patrician Gloss Deflects Credibility Question

Max Mosley puts on an act of self-effacing modesty, but it cannot conceal the patrician gloss he inherited from his father, the British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, particularly when it comes to fighting his own corner. It was therefore no surprise that the FIA president was in a feisty mood when he faced the British media yesterday for the first time since embarrassing revelations about his sadomasochistic activities were published in a Sunday tabloid newspaper six months ago, denying that the controversy had in any way affected his credibility as FIA president.

"It's laughable," he said. "This is the 21st century. Leave me out of it, suppose you've got somebody running a big company who's brilliant at what he does. He's obviously the best man for the job and there is no other person. Suddenly the gutter press discover that he's a transvestite. As far as I'm concerned, if I were a shareholder in that company, I'd say 'so what?'. So long as he doesn't go dressed as a woman into the headquarters and frighten the secretaries, what does it matter? It doesn't matter. So long as it doesn't affect what he actually does."

We had been led by a senior FIA official through labyrinthine corridors to Mosley's private office overlooking the Monza start line where, in a moment of reflection, he reminded us that 40 years ago on this same circuit he raced a formula two Brabham entered by Frank Williams.

Yet Mosley, urbane and polished as ever, had not convened this meeting as a sentimental journey down memory lane. This was an opportunity to justify the decision of the governing body's stewards to impose the 25-second penalty on Lewis Hamilton which cost him victory in last Sunday's Belgian grand prix, a decision which handed the race to his closest championship rival, Felipe Massa.

Mosley blamed the British press for criticizing the stewards' decision in Belgium, brushing aside the notion that the role of the stewards' adviser, the former MEP Alan Donnelly, in any way influenced the stewards when it came to reaching their verdict. "I am sorry to have to say this but I think the British press have gone into complete hysteria over this matter. They are utterly incapable or so it seems of writing objectively and the proof of that is the fact that five drivers sat in the press conference yesterday and expressed a view of what happened in Belgium. That view does not accord with the view of the British press. I have just been through the cuttings and did not find one single mention of that press conference."

Nor did Mosley feel that there was anything inappropriate about the fact that Donnelly's company once did consultancy work for Ferrari. "I understand that that is being said," said Mosley. "I do believe it is complete and utter rubbish and particularly in formula one it would be impossible to find somebody who had a reasonable knowledge of formula one who hadn't had a relationship with one of the teams."

He said it was analagous to a team having a former driver. "It's very difficult to have a former driver, unless you go back to the dark ages, who hasn't had a relationship with one of the existing teams. Plus it's completely easy for somebody to put [those matters] out of his mind. I don't suppose he even thinks for one moment about the relations he might have had with Ferrari.

"When you talk about judges, if a high court judge couldn't hear a case involving a company that had sometimes been one of his clients, they'd be enormously restricted. Because all the big companies litigate all the time and most of the lawyers have been involved with them."

Mosley went on to defend the current format whereby stewards at the individual races are picked from a pool of candidates who are highly experienced members of various national automobile clubs throughout the world, rather than referees who make instant decisions.

"I can't remember how many times we've discussed this," he said. "If you stand back from the thing it's extremely difficult. For example, we tried having a permanent steward who was an experienced team manager, in the form of Peter Warr [the former Lotus team manager], because that's what the teams wanted, but it didn't work for a variety of reasons. Then we had the semi-permanent stewards."

"We've tried every different system we could think of, but the fundamental problem is that this is an enormously complex sport, massively so compared with football or cricket. It's all to do with the technologies on the car. The easiest thing would be to do what football does, with a referee. If he pulls out a red card, even if the video shows he's completely wrong, the man's off, no discussion."