New Mosley threat over “dictator” claims puts FIA-FOTA deal in jeopardy
Max Mosley is fuming over 'grossly insulting' claims he was a 'dictator'
Max Mosley has sent a stinging letter to Luca di Montezemolo, accusing the FOTA and Ferrari boss of describing him as a “dictator” and giving inaccurate information to the press following the deal reached yesterday.
Mosley has demanded FOTA “correct false statements” and issue and apology or else he will “consider my options open” regarding his future as FIA president. Here’s the letter in full:
Dear Luca,
We made a deal yesterday in Paris to end the recent difficulties in Formula One. A fundamental part of this was that we would both present a positive and truthful account to the media. I was therefore astonished to learn that FOTA had been briefing the press that Mr Boeri had taken charge of Formula One, something which you know is completely untrue; that I have been forced out of office, also false; and, apparently, that I would have no role in the FIA after October, something which is plain nonsense, if only because of the FIA statutes.
Furthermore, you have suggested to the media that I was a “dictator”, an accusation which is grossly insulting to the 26 members of the World Motor Sports Council who have discussed and voted all the rules and procedures of Formula One since the 1980s, not to mention the representatives of the FIA’s 122 countries who have democratically endorsed everything Iand my World Motor Sport Council colleagues have done during the last 18 years.
If you wish the agreement we made to have any chance of survival, you and FOTA must immediately rectify your actions. You must correct the false statements which have been made and make no further such statements. You yourself must issue a suitable correction and apology at your press conference this afternoon.
Formula One is run entirely by our 5-strong team without any help from me or any other outsider. There was no need for me to involve myself further in Formula One once we had a settlement. Equally, I had a long-standing plan not to seek re-election in October. It was therefore possible for me to confirm both points to you yesterday.
However, given your and FOTA’s deliberate attempt to mislead the media, I now onsider my options open. At least until October, I am president of the FIA with the full authority of that office. After that it is the FIA members clubs, not you or FOTA, who will decide on the future leadership of the FIA.
Yours sincerely,
Max Mosley
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Just when we thought he had been disposed of…..
You can’t argue with him, you can’t reason with him. HE WILL NOT STOP UNTIL FORMULA 1 IS DEAD. As Kyle Reese may or may not have said.
sounds like a dictator
Yup.
Can’t agree more, esp. after Luca and the other team bosses made a bunch of positive statements about him yesterday.
When somebody starts to say who is him, is the perfect moment for replace him.
Max just thinks if he acts enough like Hitler he’ll attract more Nazi hookers to spank him.
let’s wait and see what Di Montezemolo’s response is
Max Mosley is clinging to power like a bit of turd clings to the edge of a toilet
He needs to be removed now!
I say that FOTA should take off and nuke the FIA offices from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
“26 members of the World Motor Sports Council who have discussed and voted all the rules and procedures of Formula One since the 1980s.”
“Formula One is run entirely by our 5-strong team without any help from me or any other outsider.”
“I am president of the FIA with the full authority of that offive.” (sic)
Amazing how the decision making of the FIA changes according to the point Max wishes to make.
LOL!
It would appear that Max doesn’t know enough about how the FIA works to be able to run it. Besides, what evidence does he have that it was FOTA who made the Boeri comments?
The “forced out” was implied from the fact that this happened 24 hours after Max said he’d stand for re-election. Hardly a natural occurrence, nor something that any reasonable journalist could have chalked up to normal behaviour or “one of those things”. If Max wasn’t forced, then there is no logical explanation for his changing his mind so quickly. No briefing at all was needed for the press to figure that one out.
The “no role after October” was implied when Max said he wouldn’t have a role in F1 between now and October. That part originated from Max’s own misleading statement.
As for the “dictator” bit… …the changes done unilaterally to the F1 regulations on March 17 2009, against the Sporting Regulations, the will of the teams and without the aid of the WMSC, would tend to argue against that.
As far as I’m concerned, today’s statement is sufficient proof on its own that Max is no longer capable of running the FIA. An apology and withdrawal of comments would be entirely inappropriate, given the validity of the ones known to be from FOTA. Rather, Max should apologise for his misleading comments to the media – including the ones in the statement in the original entry that Clive quoted.
I may be going too far here, but is it possible that FOTA’s statement was a way of testing Max’s commitment to the “agreements” made? Maybe there will still be a breakaway series?
How can you be so sure of that when all the news we have is via the media, even the specialist press cannot resist sensationalist headlines…
Those statements aren’t necessarily incompatible, so I wouldn’t read too much into them on their own.
To paraphrase slightly, Mosley could simply be saying “I continue to serve as FIA president until the end of my term and have not formally surrendered any of the powers associated with my office. Formal scrutiny, discussion and approval of F1 rules and procedures has rested and continues to rest with the WMSC. The day to day administration of F1 as a championship continues to be the responsibility of a 5 strong team of FIA officials.”
The danger here for FOTA and the best interests of F1 in general is that Max is wounded but he isn’t dead. Mosley is effectively looking for a way to go with an iota of dignity, i.e. he wants a way to step down that doesn’t look as if he were forced from office, even if he really was. Consider it the last request of the condemned man, as it were.
If that was part of the deal that FOTA agreed and they are failing to uphold, e.g. by briefing the press that Mosley is now a lame duck who has handed over responsibility for F1 to others, then Max may decide not to go quietly and the consequences of that could be disastrous.
We’ve never heard anything about this 5-person team before and the WMSC has been circumvented quite a few times (but not as often as the TWG and SWG, which according to Appendix 5 of the Sporting Regulations are supposed to be the initial point of formal discussion for F1 regs).
I wasn’t trying to confirm the veracity of Mosley’s statements, just suggest that they may not be contradictory.
But it isn’t too huge a leap of faith to suggest that an FIA championship is administered and supported by a small group of FIA officials, is it?
arrgghhh this is getting very tiresome very quickly.
Julius Caesar was a dictator and said he wasn’t. Look what happened to him…
Like father, like son.
What did FOTA learn?….
That Max Mosley is considerably less adept at applying his intelligence than FOTA may previously have thought.
Which in turn makes FOTA looks far less intelligent than previously thought.
Too much willy waving, and not enough actual doing anything.
Depends… …seeing Max break his word so soon, the breakaway would be pretty easy to re-start. This move has basically destroyed Max’s credibility in F1 because he’s established that he will not keep his word, and has done so quickly enough for FOTA to be able to have some control over the consequences.
At least Max will now go down in history for destorying F1. I’m sure the FOTA boys are getting sick and tired of this tiresome dribble and will breakaway….
The man is insane. Just when we thought F1 could move on and get back to the racing, Max refuses to let go. Sure Luca was perhaps a little excited when he described Max as a dictator, but is that any worse than Max calling FOTA team principals loonies? I can just see the bankers over at CVC on the phone right now to Bernie telling him to finish the job properly and to tell his mate to get — and keep — his head in once and forever. Enough is enough.
Lol, oh dear, he just won’t give up, will he.
Of course, Max won’t give up so soon. As an addict to the sado/masoch scene, he just got a sweet public spanking by Bernie and Luca. Mmmmhhh that was soooo good. More pleaaasse ….
But obviously, calling members of FOTA for ‘loonies’ is not insulting…
And I was only just thinking a few moments ago that Keith must nominate a new enemy of F1 we’ll all take turns bashing, and Mosley shows he isn’t finished yet.
I had a feeling he wouldn’t bow out quietly. Ron Dennis must feel completely vindicated now.
He is a “certified mad man”. That we all know. Can’t he just be removed from office quickly and quietly for all our sakes? It is just embarrassing now. Whoe said he was “the cleverest man in F1″? Just because someone said it doesn’t make it true. He is a liability and has been for some time.
I knew he couldn’t be trusted! Ergh, FOTA really have made a deal with the devil.
Hurry up FOTA… just start the breakaway series. That idiot Mosley isn’t going anywhere… and we all know it.
Did he even wait for the ink to dry on the contracts? Have FOTA signed anything?
To my reading of the statement, Max has broken any contracts that were signed – and if they weren’t signed, there won’t be any legal consequences for ignoring it.
Oh my God THAT MAN!! SO annoying!
To us, three things were most important: that F1 stay F1 and not become F3; that there is no dictator, but that there was a choice of rules, agreed and not imposed; and that whoever had a team was consulted and had a voice.
I uunderstand that Max could interperate this statement , but in my mind, (what little tere is left after this whole mess) what Luca said was that there IS no dictator,meaning Max was being reasonable as opposed to unyielding, and the rest is just misunderstaing of Mxax saying that he couls take the rest of the summer off. I think max is picking flysh-t out of the pepper.
Barry
From the FOTA meeting:
The Chairman and FOTA also thanked the FIA President: “Mosley was very clear and honest. He said that he had thought about leaving already some time ago and that his staff knew about it. Therefore I have to say, in a moment when Mosley is leaving, that I have to thank him, beyond the points of controversy we had, because he has been working very well, especially as far as safety is concerned.”
———-
I`m not sure how much overwhelming gratitude Max expects but that doesn`t sound like an insult to me.
what the hell do we have to do to get rid of this SOB?
Dress in green and demonstrate in the streets? Hell, I would be up for that if it would do any good… But I live in Austin, Texas and behavior like that would just confuse most people here….
Egos in F1 are huge – so are the mouth in some team principals (Flavio and di Montezemolo, I’m looking at you). I just hope there are some reasonable people inside FIA who won’t let this get blown out of proportion… Can they punish him based on article 151c?
Unfortunately Max has a tendency to enjoy punishment
crass maybe, but I enjoyed it : )
They cannot punish him under 151c, except by fining him. He doesn’t have a licence, so it cannot be revoked, nor does he have any race results to have modified or removed.
What the FIA can do is have a vote of confidence. It would be reliant on convincing the smaller countries that their prize events would be safer without Max than with him – and maybe petitioning the relevant individuals would help.
di Montezemolo could learn a thing or two from Flav about keeping his mouth shut .. but just could not resist one last dig.. now it is personal let see if they turn on him
You really think that would have made any difference? Someone or something would probably have triggered this before October. He must have written the letter as soon as yesterday`s press conference was over. He had no intention of going quietly & with dignity.
There was a piece on the itv f1 website claiming mosleybhs vowednto write explosive memoirs, I imagine it’s still there.
Sorry, mosley has vowed to, rather than that mess in the middle
The best way to describe Max is: “He’s son of a b****”
That would be insulting the “B****”.
You obviously don’t know much about Max’s mother… google the “Mitford sisters”
This is why a breakaway series is needed. Yesterday’s solution attempted to fix the symptoms, not the disease itself (the FIA, Max, and Bernie.)
well said. I still hope it happens …for next year. Unfortionately, if it doesn’t FOTA is just putting off the inevitable.
“At least until October, I am president of the FIA with the full authority of that office. ”
In a letter trying to state how he isn’t a dictator? GG Max!
Mother…
Well, he also is a loonie and a halfwit. He needs a good spanking! LOL!
He`ll push them too far. I haven`t heard that any contracts have been signed yet.
I knew it. That man is a psychopath…what else?
Let’s pray he’s gone very soon so we can get a fresh air in F1… get it modernised? let’s hope
What a horrible and selfish man we have here.
and just when I thought he was going to spend more time with his five closest friends…….
He is like a child stamping his feet because he wants the playground all to himself.
Dont insult the children! My 5-yr old has more maturity than Max
He needs a very firm spanking, and then….er..never mind.
Damn is George Bush back or what? At least he left quietly this guy won’t shut the F up!
You think George was bad, wait till Obama has been in another year.
Get real, Bush created a big mess that no one can get out of.
Bush is/was incompetent.
Obama thinks a little too highly of himself.
Mosely is both.
I am not a Bush supporter but he didnt create this mess but he didnt help stop it either. It was created during the prior administration.
This is why I added “I hope” to my “Ding Dong the witch is dead” reply to the earlier article.
Don’t count your witches before they’re melted!
…and even then there can be a mistake
The truth hurts sometimes, doesn’t it Max?
I read in the news just now that Michael Jackson has died, very sad news indeed I thought. Then I read that Max is considering staying on at the helm of the FIA, fell to my knees and sobbed inconsolably.
I can’t believe that after just one day he’s picking fights already. He is a sad, bitter & twisted ‘loonie’ who doesn’t know when he’s outstayed his welcome.
I sincerely hope Luca does NOT issue any apology to Max, certainly not until Max apologises for the insults he’s been throwing of late.
And here was me thinking it was all going to be about the racing from here onwards
This guy is on another planet!He just doesn’t get it”none as blind as those that will not see”.
is max mosley the most childish, immature 68 year old in the world?
No I’m sure there is someone else out there that deserves that crown…
Just as we thought we can concentrate on wheel to wheel battle on track MAX had just BLOWN it.
“I am president of the FIA with the full authority of that office”.
That does sound like a DICTATOR
Mosley’s taking an awful risk, here.
His stepping down was a condition of the peace negotiations. No Mosley, no breakaway. He cannot expect the FIA to re-elect him after a) previously agreeing to step down in Ocotber, which leads to b) jeopardising everything the FIA and FOTA have worked for.
What a day.
First I get the news that F1 has been saved.
Then I get the news that Farrah Fawcett has died.
Then I get the news that Michael Jackson has died.
The I get the news that Max Mosley has arisen from the dead to once again try to kill F1!
di Montezemolo was wrong and is untrustworthy in terms of the anti trust issues that threaten the sport’s and the independent teams viability. For many contributors here, if you want to play Max the man fine but many here too ignore the substance of the FIA vs FOTA issues every time. Ferrari have an exclusive position among the manufacturers that leverages the amount of money they can tip into F1 due to their brand positioning and the tifosi support, they will naturally be implaccably opposed to reduced spending or any equality in resources being brought to bear which in turn means that Ferrari want to be unchallengeable. Even Mercedes needs to temper their spending and consider their wider non sporting dependent brand just as they did way back in the 50’s when they pulled the silver cars out.
In short if those Mosley haters here want the Schu years back just keep voting the way you are.
All of this will become clear in time.;)
“In short if those Mosley haters here want the Schu years back just keep voting the way you are.”
If LDM and Max had any deal, that’s almost definitely gone now after his tantrum today. So why would I still want Max to stay?
Ferrari has been in the sport forever, they have been in it thru good and bad seasons. I have seen ferraris be at the back of the grid and they still showed up for every race. They never made excuses and pulled the little temper tantrums the michelin teams did in Indy 2006. When it was Bad for ferrari they stuck it out.
What a team spends to be competitive should be their business and no one elses.
By the way Mercedes sales have skyrockets in the years since they came back into motorsports officially. Their cars look and perform better than ever. I never considered owning a Mercedes in the non racing years. Then I owned BMW’s.
Luca may shouldnt have said what he did but Max abd Bernie have been rattling off insults since last year at some of the players. Some of these folks have thin skin you know.
By the way, I am not a ferrari fan. I do respect them team though.
Max’s proposals would have had everyone disqualified at the end of 2010. Better the Schumi years than the nobody-at-all years…
Its just Max posturing. The irony is, for once, he doesnt want to look like the one getting spanked.
I voted yesterday that the deal was bad for F1…and now I see I was right again. I think I was wrong 1 time before but that was a mistake also.
Seriously, this guyis the epitome of a power monger. Somebody made a George Bush reference in here but this guy make Idi Amin look rational. If this doesnt make Fota say the heck with it and go it own their own, nothing will.
If the teams were smart, which most have proved their not then they would shutdown the rest of the season ubtil Max is gone for good and Barred from ever having anything to do in Motorosports again.
He just wont go away.
As much as Ron Dennis dissapointed me, he was right about Max.
This really should come as no surprise to anyone who has any experience with people with personality disorders.
Sure, we all have our neuroses, but Max exhibits so many of the classic symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder coupled with Psychopathy. It’s really quite remarkable. Look it up and you’ll see a match to so many traits listed. We’re seeing the last throws of a man in serious psychological distress, his house of cards-his very constructed reality-crumbling around him. He is compelled to defend his belief in himself and his position, despite the growing proof that it does not match the reality of those around him. At the end of the day, I feel truly sorry for him. His childhood, his parents, the loss of his son, and now this.
The best for all is that Mr. Mosley retreat in silence and seek treatment, and let F1 heal itself as well.
I have shown before on this site, with examples that Mosley Is a SOCIOPATH, and he is not going to go away quietly.
Has anyone heard of the urban myth about celebs dying in 3’s well if we’re lucky then Max will be today’s 3rd, and then F1 can get back to business.
However that is just wishful thinking.
We need to wait for a response from FOTA, and a sensible one which does not include an apology to Mosley.
Yes we, mostly want a Breakaway, but i have serious doubts it was ever a reality.
As long as max Mosley Has anything to do with FIA/F1 or motorsport in any way then we the fans will always lose.
Let’s just wait and see what response is given and then move on from there.
While all sociopaths are psychopaths, not all psychopaths are sociopaths. Many captains of industry and policemen, etc. are highly functioning psychopaths.
Thanks…I missed the obituaries section.
Even they are too good to go to the pearly gates with he who shall not be named.
Who says “he who shall not be named” is going in the same direction as the others?
With all the press coverage of the violence in Iran, due to a dictatorship not wanted nor loved by its people, one cannot deny the simularities with Max Mosley and the FIA inwhich he has led for nearly two decades.
This is the same man ofcourse who declared that Ferrari were not that important to Formula One. The same man who described Sir Jackie Stewart as a ‘certified halfwit’. And the same man who takes great pleasure in certain
deranged sexual practices in secluded London basements.
And he wants an apology. Stroll on mate!
can you say New World Order
Sod off Max. Please. Please please please. Pretty please. With (ahem) whipped cream and a cherry on top.
OK?
…I know….I’m trapped in a Fellini/Hitchcock version of The Wizard of Odd….
Only one day….what took him so long?
I’d say he needs to come to his senses, but that’s pretty much unexplored territory, at least, as of late.
The Two-Headed Monster may still be with us. and I’m laughing so hard I could just die (or is it…I’m dying so hard, I should just laugh).