Max Mosley - Imola press conference address.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

I have three points on which I would like to offer a few words, after which I will answer questions.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

I have three points on which I would like to offer a few words, after which I will answer questions.

The three points I would like to deal with are those involving post-race scrutineering; electronics in F1 cars; and the European Union.

As far as post-race scrutineering is concerned, it has been suggested in a number of quarters that all the checking of the cars should be done before the race starts, in order to ensure that the race result itself could not be in question. Theoretically, this would eliminate questions like those which arose in Brazil two weeks ago, or in Malaysia last year. Unfortunately, years of experience have demonstrated that it is impossible so to arrange the cars that it is impossible to change the settings or dimensions during the race.

There is a vivid example, from the USA, which demonstrates the impossibility of this concept. This involved NASCAR and a regulation specifying a minimum ride height. The ride height was checked by requiring competitors to drive their cars over a block as they left the pits. Theoretically, this meant that once the car was on the track there was no possibility of any adjustment being made to the car, hence the cars were deemed to be legal at all times. However, the teams developed a technique of jacking up their cars and inserting a wooden wedge into the springs to maintain them at the required height to pass over the block. As soon as the car was on the track, however, the wedges were shaken out of the springs and the car would settle to a new, illegal ride height.

In all forms of motor sport there are endless examples of similar subterfuge, which is why -unfortunately - we must continue to undertake our post-race checks. When a car falls outside the regulations, which happens occasionally, the long drawn out delay in publishing the results can be extremely annoying not just for the press and the public but also for the governing body. However, there is no way to avoid this happening, albeit occasionally. All I can say to you is that the people most concerned by this are the members of the team whose car offends the rules - and they will normally do their best to ensure that it does not happen.

I would mention here that there was only one such occurrence in the entire 1999 season, and so far there has been one incident in 2000. I sincerely hope that there is no recurrence. It is a question of the teams not running too close on these dimensions.

The second point concerns electronics on F1 cars. As you may know, there has been some discussion about the introduction of new scrutineering procedures. The reason for this is that we have become aware of the operation by some teams of open-loop traction control systems. These systems allow the engine management to ''know'' when the rear wheels are turning faster than they should, and reacts accordingly. We have taken a number of steps that will make it difficult for the teams to continue to do this. We have also agreed with the teams to set up a meeting, with their electronics engineers, in the next two weeks. The meeting will take this subject even further.

In time for Silverstone, what we have done is to examine all the cars and, figuratively speaking, cut a number of ''wires,'' to make it more difficult for the electronics to be exploited in ways that we regard as inappropriate. With the co-operation of the electronics engineers we hope that this process can be taken even further. For the FIA it remains essential that all the teams race to the same rules. It is totally unacceptable that certain teams - those that are not strictly observing the rules - should be allowed to have an advantage over their rivals.

Why, you might ask, is the FIA unable to check every last detail, to be certain of what is happening deep in the ''brains'' of the modern F1 car? The answer is that the electronic systems now used in F1 are so complex that even if we had an army of people, it would probably still be impossible to know precisely what is going on.

Just to give an idea of the extent and complexity of these electronic systems, you may be interested to know that in several cases these systems provide an individual engine ''map'' for each cylinder of a 10-cylinder engine. The parameters include ignition and fuelling. On each map there is another map, and so on, creating what is in effect a three-dimensional structure - figuratively speaking - which it is almost impossible for an outside body like the FIA and its experts to penetrate. It would be more or less impossible for us to say with absolute certainty that there was nothing concealed there that should not be there.

Because it is our duty to be able to provide each team principal, honestly and competently, with a guarantee that none of his rival teams are infringing the rules in any way, the only way to cope with this dilemma is to simplify the rules. Hence the figurative ''cutting of the wires.'' We will not retreat from our position on this matter, indeed we will build on it. It is, after all, a fundamental duty of any governing body to ensure that the competition is fair and that everybody races to the same rules.

The third point concerns the European Union. There is an ongoing and very tedious discussion with the Competitions department of the European Commission. I wish to say two things here. First, as far as the EC itself is concerned, the nature of our relations is by no means all negative. We cooperate very successfully with the department of the Commission concerned with road safety. Indeed, in a report issued recently by the EC, the major project operated by the FIA in collaboration with the EC, which is the ENCAP crash-testing programme, was acknowledged to be by far the most efficient and effective road safety programme in which the Commission has been involved throughout the last five years. That was not our assessment, it was the judgement of the EC's own report.

Unfortunately, as far as competitions policy and the EC is concerned, the FIA is required to deal with people whose view of the subject is extremely narrow and introspective. Furthermore, they do not understand sport - any sport - and the issues which it raises.

What I wish to say about the Competitions department of the EC does not apply to the new Commissioner, Professor Monti, who has only recently assumed his responsibilities. It is the hope of the FIA that Professor Monti will eventually regain control of his services, because it is those services which are responsible for the difficulties that have arisen between us.

There are a number of issues involving the EC and the FIA which can easily be resolved. However, there are two which cannot.

First, the Commission asserts that the FIA, together with the governing bodies of other sports, should not have a single governing body in each country of the EU. The Commission believes that all countries should permit a virtually unlimited number of sanctioning bodies, each of which would be empowered to issue licences, sanction races and so on. By implication, the same principle would apply internationally. As an example, let's take France, where the law requires just one governing body that will be recognised by the national government for each major sport. The EC's Competitions department has deemed this principle to be wrong: it would therefore insist on a multiplicity of governing bodies for each sport, in each country, all of them free to license competitors and sanction races.

The Competitions department of the EC apparently believes that having only one governing body allows that body abusively to prevent individuals from taking part in its sport.

The FIA contends that this argument is nonsensical. First, EC competition law is designed for the economic market place, in which it is possible for one party to gain economic dominance of a market and use it abusively to exploit that market. Such a situation is entirely different from a sport in which the existence of a federation is the consequence of a democratic electoral process. Under our system, there is no more sense in having two governing bodies for motor sport than in having two entirely separate elected governments in one country. The government only has a monopoly because it has been elected to that status - and as long as it is democratically elected, the same principle applies to a sporting federation. The chaos - not to mention the physical danger, which would result from multiple governing bodies is obvious.

The FIA's second conflict with the EC springs from the EC's contention that the organiser of any sporting event - say a Grand Prix race - should own all the commercial rights to that event. We accept this principle as perfectly reasonable. But it all changes when the organiser approaches us with a request for his event to form part of the FIA's World Championship. We would then accept the event as part of our World Championship, provided certain conditions apply.

Non-championship F1 races were quite common events until almost 20 years ago, and they would still take place, with all the top teams and drivers taking part, provided the organiser could pay an appropriate amount of money to attract them. But the amount required to attract a full field of F1 competitors to any such non-championship event would probably be as much as 50 or 100 times the amount paid by the organiser of an FIA sanctioned F1 World Championship race. The reason for this is that the organiser of a World Championship Grand Prix race gets the benefit of the guaranteed participation of all the F1 teams - with the quid pro quo that many of commercial rights to its are put into the pool of such rights which are sold as part of the commercial rights to the World Championship.

On these two major subjects, we have in effect told the Commission that we are willing to continue discussing the issues and that we will attend the hearing planned for next month. If the decision goes against us, we may even consider making an appeal.

But if, within the EU, the law turns out to be as the Commission presently claims it to be, then that law is inconsistent with laws in virtually all other parts of the world and inconsistent with the statutes of the FIA. The FIA would then be faced with two alternative courses of action. Either it will have to change its statutes to require all 119 member countries to obey the principles applicable within the EU; or it can regard the entire European Union as one country, within which - according to FIA statutes - the EU can behave as it sees fit. The countries of the rest of the world would then be free to recognise whichever body it chose as being the international authority for the EU.

This is the situation which already exists in the United States, where there are seven - soon to be eight - major sanctioning bodies. They include NASCAR, the NHRA, CART and others. These bodies come together as ACCUS, which is internationally recognised as the body which issues international licences to competitors applying from their various disciplines. There are other sanctioning bodies inside the USA which do not belong to ACCUS, but they have no need for, or desire to have, international representation or relations.

The FIA's situation, if it moved to recognition of the EU as one country, would be precisely analogous to what already exists in the USA. But the consequence would be that the countries of the EU would automatically lose their international influence within motorsport, because their representation on the governing body would be diminished. Inevitably, too, the number of World Championship events within EU territory would have to be decreased, simply because it would be absurd to hold nine separate events within what would for all intents and purposes be one single country.

Faced with this choice, the FIA cannot - and its General Assembly will not - allow 15 countries to dictate to the other 104 countries how the FIA's statutes should be. If that's the way they want it, that's the way it will be inside the EU. The rest of the world, however, will continue as at present.

If and when the time comes for other international sporting bodies in the EU to make similar decisions on this same question, my opinion is that they will adopt exactly the same stance that has been taken by the FIA. They will, I believe, agree that it is unacceptable for a small number of countries, however prestigious and well established they may be, to dictate to the rest of the world how things should be done.

If sense prevailed, it would be easy and simple to resolve all these conflicts. Most unfortunately, however, our interlocutors on the EC are unwilling to meet with us for a serious discussion. Since we received a warning letter from the EC two and a half years ago we have had only two encounters, at each of which the EC representatives merely recited their case and then sat and listened politely to our replies. Having shaken hands, they then disappeared.

The only way to resolve these issues, we believe, is for us to sit down for a serious discussion of the issues. It is essential that the bureaucrats dealing with our case should understand the issues. At present, the simple fact is that they do not understand them. I do not believe that they are acting malevolently: this is a highly complex issue and they simply do not understand what they are dealing with. If necessary, I could continue by recounting the absurd suggestions that have been made by EC officials, suggestions which demonstrate their complete failure to understand the issues.

Having said all that, I am now prepared to try to answer any questions you may have.

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