Max Mosley has won the crucial vote of confidence held today on his ability to continue to rule the sport.
The embattled 68-year-old's future was the subject of a secret ballot that took place in the FIA Senate in Paris, and many were predicting the outcome would be too close to call.
Ultimately, however, 103 delegates voted in favour of Mosley remaining in the most powerful position in international motor racing, compared to just 55 against.
Head of the Automobile Association of America (AAA), Robert Darbelnet – who announced the result to the waiting media outside the governing body's imposing Place de la Concorde headquarters in the French capital – admitted to the
BBC that he was disappointed with the outcome, and may withdraw his country's membership from the FIA as a consequence of it.
Mosley had called the vote following the
News of the World's damning exposé on his private life just over two months ago. The Sunday tabloid published a front page feature on 30 March, detailing his visit to a Chelsea apartment where it printed pictures of him indulging in what it called a 'sick Nazi orgy with 5 hookers'. The paper claimed the former barrister and an amateur racing driver himself paid £2,500 for the five-hour experience.
Whilst not denying the allegations
per se, Mosley has repeatedly and vigorously refuted any Nazi connotations to the matter, and is set to face News Group Newspapers – who own the
News of the World – in court next month, where he will be seeking 'unlimited damages' over breach of privacy. He is also due to take the paper on in France on libel charges.
Since the article was published, however, Mosley has lost the respect of many within the sport, with retractions of invitations to several high-profile events for fear of causing further embarrassment, and a large number of leading figures and influential motoring organisations calling for him to step down to avoid doing any more damage. Only a handful, by contrast, have proclaimed themselves in support of the disgraced Briton, but it now seems they are the ones who have prevailed.
The son of Oswald Mosley – founder of the pre-war British Union of Fascists – replaced the recently-departed Jean-Marie Balestre as FIA President in 1993. Prior to that he had helped to set up the highly successful March Engineering project in F1 in 1970, and four years after that played an instrumental role in the foundation of the Formula One Constructors' Association (FOCA) in company with Bernie Ecclestone, esteemed and influential Lotus designer Colin Chapman and team chiefs Teddy Mayer, Ken Tyrrell and Frank Williams.
Other career flashpoints include the fiasco that became of the 2005 US Grand Prix, when Mosley was largely blamed for only six cars taking the start, after he blocked the implementation of a temporary chicane to slow cars through the fastest corner on the circuit – a short-term measure which would have enabled the Michelin-shod runners to compete.
He also famously presided over the judgment in last year's well-documented spying scandal, that saw McLaren-Mercedes fined a sporting record £100 million USD for bringing the sport into disrepute.
Mosley fleetingly tendered his resignation in the summer of 2004, only to retract that decision after the FIA Senate called for him to stay on. His current contract is due to expire in October, 2009, and he has repeatedly insisted he has no intention of staying on beyond that point, claims dismissed by former long-time friend and ally Ecclestone [see separate story –
click here].
