Mosley told the Daily Mail di Montezemolo urged him to ban double diffusers when the legality of the devices was being investigated last year:

Luca does have this silly idea that if it is Ferrari then it is OK. When we had all this stuff about the double-diffuser he was on the phone every day saying, “You have got to sort out the Court of Appeal and make sure we win”.

He didn’t put it as baldly as that but that is what he said. I said, “Luca, I’m sorry but first of all they wouldn’t take any notice and secondly I am not going to do it”. I couldn’t. He took that quite personally. He honestly thought I would.
Max Mosley

The double diffusers, which Ferrari did not have, were declared legal. But earlier this year the FIA decided to ban them for 2011.

Mosley is understood to be writing a book covering his time as FIA president from 1991 to 2009.

Read more: Mosley attacks “weak” di Montezemolo

He also said letting that Ferrari keep their one-two win in the 1999 Malaysian Grand Prix was a mistake:

Luca is very, very good company with people and he’s certainly a very personable, pleasant person but, in my opinion, he’s also a very weak character so he’s easily led.

He allowed himself to get to get into a situation of conflict between Ferrari and the FIA whereas if [Jean] Todt were in charge, it would never have got to that stage.

The classic case of people saying we favoured Ferrari was the barge boards [at Malaysia in 1999], which were legal if they were at a slight angle to the chassis and illegal if they were vertical. Now I think that they were probably vertical, but we took them off to look at them, and then it was possible for Ferrari to say “No they were at a slight angle” and they got off on that basis.

We should have impounded the entire car, but you live an learn and we would never make that mistake again.
Max Mosley

He added that he wasn’t bothered that so many fans were critical of his management of Formula 1:

It doesn’t bother me that a lot of fans were hostile, because I believe that hostility was based on misinformation. I mean, a lot of it is just assumption – you read things on blogs that are complete nonsense.

You get people saying things like, “Why don’t you just leave the regulations alone? What we want is innovation.” Well yes, of course we all want innovation, but if it’s allowed to go unchecked it puts Formula 1 out of business.
Max Mosley

You can follow the progress of his successor Jean Todt in our monthly series of approval ratings:

• Jean Todt’s Approval Rating IV
• Jean Todt’s Approval Rating III
• Jean Todt’s Approval Rating II
• Jean Todt’s Approval Rating

There are more of Mosley’s thoughts on his successor Jean Todt, his reaction to Ayrton Senna’s death and McLaren’s spygate penalty in the full interview in this month’s issue of F1 Racing.

Read more: 1999 Malaysian Grand Prix flashback

Tony Purnell, who helped devise Max Mosley’s controversial budget cap plan, has left the FIA.

Formerly a team principal at Jaguar, Purnell joined the FIA in 2006. Together with fellow technical consultant Peter Wright, Purnell was also involved in introducing 2009′s radical aerodynamic changes designed to aid overtaking.

But the budget cap proposal proved more controversial. The teams objected to the plan and threatened to leave the sport if budget caps were introduced.

They backed down after the budget cap plan was replaced an agreement to restrict their resources and Mosley agreed not to stand in the 2009 FIA president election.

An FIA spokesperson said:

Tony Purnell is no longer working with us as a consultant and we wish him well for the future.

We are currently focusing on developing and strengthening our in-house expertise and in this regard Bernard Niclot, former Research and Development Manager at PSA Peugeot Citroën, has been appointed as a senior Technical Adviser and Gilles Simon, former head of the Engine and Electronics department for the Ferrari Formula One team, has been appointed to a new FIA position as Director of Powertrain and Electronics.

The departure of a key figure from the Mosley presidency suggests his successor Jean Todt is less interested in resurrecting the budget caps proposal.

Niclot and Simon both worked at Ferrari during Todt’s time with the team.

Niclot’s role will be to provide advice and guidance on technical issues in motor racing and in the wider automotive world, particularly on matters concerning safety, the environment and consumer matters. He will begin working for the FIA on February 1st.

Update: And Alan Donnelly’s gone too.

However it also admitted it would not prevent drivers managed by Briatore, such as Mark Webber, from competing in F1 as it had previously threatened:

While the appeal is underway, the Word Motor Sport Council’s decision of 21 September 2009 remains in full effect. However, in view of the uncertainty that this may create for drivers who may be affected by this decision, the FIA President and FIA Senate have decided that, pending the outcome of the FIA’s appeal, Superlicences will continue to be issued to qualifying drivers in the usual way.

This is a discernible softening the FIA’s stance where previously I think we may have seen an “all-or-nothing” response. Is this another sign that we have a more even-tempered president at the helm?

There is a reference to that in the FIA’s statement as well, which hints at the direction matters are be heading in:

In his election campaign last summer, FIA President Jean Todt and his team announced that new measures for constructive change, including a disciplinary procedure, would be introduced. Work on this is well advanced. Once in place, this will address the issues in the Court’s judgement. Nonetheless, an appeal is merited.

In the meantime, get ready for Briatore vs the FIA round three…

Red more: Flavio Briatore wins appeal against lifetime ban from motorsport

The FIA focused its punishment on Symonds and Briatore instead of Renault

The Singapore crash affair is by no means over: I cannot imagine the FIA letting Tuesday’s verdict in favour of Flavio Briatore lie, and Briatore himself has said he may bring further lawsuits.

But now the verdict is out there and the principal players have all said their pieces, it’s time to take stock.

The FIA’s attempt to single out the individuals it believed were behind Nelson Piquet Jnr’s deliberate crashing in the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix has backfired badly. What are the consequences for F1?

Depending on who you believe, either the FIA didn’t want to punish Renault – and risk the team joining Honda and BMW in quitting the sport – or Max Mosley really had it in for Flavio Briatore. Or perhaps a bit of both.

Whichever, the outcome was that when the FIA handed down its verdict on September 21st last year, Renault escaped the full force of the punishment:

The World Motor Sport Council considers that offences of this severity merit permanent disqualification from the FIA Formula One World Championship. However, having regard to the points in mitigation mentioned above and in particular the steps taken by Renault F1 to identify and address the failings within its team and condemn the actions of the individuals involved, the WMSC has decided to suspend Renault F1’s disqualification until the end of the 2011 season. The World Motor Sport Council will only activate this disqualification if Renault F1 is found guilty of a comparable breach during that time.
WMSC decision

In short, Renault would have to commit another similar infraction to gain a disqualification. And remember this extremely restrained verdict came one month after their European Grand Prix ban imposed by the Hungarian Grand Prix stewards was lifted.

Instead the FIA went after the two men it said were responsible: Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds:

As regards Mr. Briatore, the World Motor Sport Council declares that, for an unlimited period, the FIA does not intend to sanction any International Event, Championship, Cup, Trophy, Challenge or Series involving Mr. Briatore in any capacity whatsoever, or grant any license to any Team or other entity engaging Mr. Briatore in any capacity whatsoever. It also hereby instructs all officials present at FIA-sanctioned events not to permit Mr. Briatore access to any areas under the FIA’s jurisdiction. Furthermore, it does not intend to renew any Superlicence granted to any driver who is associated (through a management contract or otherwise) with Mr. Briatore, or any entity or individual associated with Mr. Briatore.
WMSC decision

This verdict was widely truncated to the phrase “lifetime ban” when it was reported, but the differences between the two are important. The FIA does not have power to punish individuals, which is why the ‘ban’ was worded in this way.

As has been widely pointed out the Tribune de Grande Instance did not find Briatore innocent – far from it. They simply found that the FIA had exceeded the limits of its authority:

The FIA [...] can sanction licence holders, leaders, members of the ASNs [national sporting authorities], but it cannot with respect to third parties, take measures equivalent to a sanction – in contravention of article 28 of its statutes. The World Council, by forbidding FIA members and licences to work with Messrs Briatore and Symonds, on the one hand added a negative condition – to not work with them – which is not provided for within the FIA statutes.
Tribune de Grande Instance

(See the FIA statutes for more)

Out from the FIA came a predictably thundering denunciation and some terse words from Max Mosley as well. But it’s far from clear what it can do next – it seems to have painted itself into a corner.

Letting the whole shameful affair lie as it is with no-one receiving any meaningful punishment would be a disgrace. But it can hardly call Renault back and say “actually it turns out we should have punished you”. It has said it is considering an appeal in which it will hope to find some way of sanctioning Briatore.

Nor should we forget that while the FIA went to one extreme in punishing Briatore, it went to the other by failing to punish Nelson Piquet Jnr. He may (so the FIA claims) have blown the whistle on the whole affair, but should a driver who admits to crashing a car on purpose be allowed to keep his superlicence?

Turning away from the Singapore case, how should the FIA handle these cases in the future? Reform its statutes to give it the power to hand down punishments to individuals? Or accept that it might in future have to hand down punishments even greater than McLaren’s 2007 $100m fine – to teams whose F1 commitment is wavering?

Finding the answer to that is the first big question of Jean Todt’s presidency.

Renault Singapore crash controversy

• Flavio Briatore wins appeal against lifetime ban from motorsport
• Renault escape ban for crash (Poll)
• Fernando Alonso should renounce his Singapore Grand Prix ‘win’
• Briatore and Symonds step down as Renault accepts Singapore crash charge
• Piquet-Renault scandal: more new evidence and complaints about leaks
• Statement by Nelson Piquet Jnr on his Singapore crash leaked online
• Did Piquet crash on purpose? (Poll)
• Renault face Singapore crash hearing
• Nelson Piquet Jnr and Fernando Alonso in renault Singapore claim
• Piquet’s scathing attack on Briatore
• Nelson Piquet Jnr dropped by Renault
• 2008 Singapore Grand Prix analysis
• Fernando Alonso’s bad luck turns good for win (2008 Singapore Grand Prix)

The FIA presidential election is on Friday

With the FIA presidential election just days away the row over Max Mosley’s efforts to ensure he is succeeded by Jean Todt and not Ari Vatanen is the subject of great scrutiny.

Vatanen has taken the step of appealing to a French court to ensure next week’s elections are carried out fairly, a move which drew an angry reaction from the FIA which insisted its procedures are fair and transparent.

It is typical of the FIA under Mosley that it should react to Vatanen’s request for legal oversight in such a heavy-handed way. If the FIA had nothing to fear from an investigation it would welcome it.

But with Mosley publicly backing Todt and other FIA members have been lobbying for him, it’s no surprise the FIA is being viewed with suspicion.

The latest row began after the Daily Telegraph published letters from two senior FIA officals who had been lobbying for Todt. The FIA Foundation reacted by insisting that the pair – FIA director general of region one Peter Doggwiler and director general of the FIA Foundation David Ward – were backing Todt in a private capacity not endorsed by the Foundation.

The support of Mosley and Ecclestone has proved a double-edged sword for Todt. It may have guaranteed the backing of some clubs, but for others Todt is tainted by association with the current regime.

A reminder of that came in Mosley’s letter to the FIA three days ago in which he heaped praise upon himself over the recent Renault scandal:

More recently we had an extraordinary plot to crash a car deliberately during a race. Again, there was controversy but this time the car manufacturer responsible took action and the truth was quickly established.

The FIA first became aware of this plot during last year’s Brazilian Grand Prix, yet took almost a year to investigate it. This was not ‘quickly establishing’ the truth. Why did the FIA wait so long? Was it because Briatore sided with FOTA in the teams’ row with the FIA earlier this year?

A close call

The election probably wouldn’t be generating quite this much antagonism if one candidate was comfortably in the lead. We could be looking at a fairly close call.

So far the motor sports clubs of Australia, Germany, Finland, Canada, Uganda, Jamaica, Netherlands, Sweden, South Africa, Ireland, Jordan, Peru, Switzerland, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine have all declared support for Ari Vatanen.

Jean Todt is known to be backed by the clubs of Bahrain, Monaco, India, France, Spain and the United Arab Emirates. However earlier this week he claimed to have the support of the majority of clubs in Africa, Asia, South America, Europe and the Middle East.

It’s difficult to understate the importance of these elections for the future of Formula 1. It’s been a turbulent 18 years under Mosley, who has often made a dramatic and expensive change to the rules only to undo it a few months or years later. Meanwhile the sport has been dragged through a seemingly unending sequence of damaging scandals.

So it is beyond me how some journalists with the access and opportunities to cover the election are choosing not to. Such as Joe Saward, who wrote on his blog:

I have completely ignored the FIA elections in recent weeks. This has been a deliberate policy as I do not wish to be accused by one side or the other of favouritism and given the shenanigans going on between them it is inevitable that even objective reporting will be viewed as partisan. In addition I feel that the whole process demeans the federation.

Not expressing a preference is one thing but this uniquely important, once-in-a-generation event should not be overlooked out of fear of treading on people’s toes.

An open, honest, fair election would not demean the federation. A rigged vote and a coronation would demean it, but we’re less likely to know that is the case if some journalists aren’t bothering to look. My disappointment in Saward’s stance is all the greater as I admire much of his writing.

Personally I have no qualms about expressing a preference: On the whole I am deeply dissatisfied with what Mosley has done for Formula 1 – particularly in the five years since he last promised to resign. I am therefore not willing to support a candidate who has his backing. And certainly not one who displayed the disdain for sportsmanship Jean Todt did in the 1989 Paris-Dakar Rally and the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix. At the last count 77% of this site’s readers felt the same.

F1 has been rocked by scandal after scandal in the past few years: Michelin, Indianapolis, spying, budget caps, Singapore – not to mention a string of inconsistent and disproportionately punitive stewards’ decisions.

Whoever wins this election has the chance to fix this, and if they fail it could be another 18 years before they are replaced.

Accredited F1 journalists often stand accused of giving the FIA an easy ride out of fear they will lose their precious permits. In 2007 the media colluded with the FIA in covering up a horrendous cock-up where confidential McLaren and Ferrari data appeared in a public FIA document.

Now more than ever we need the FIA to be held to account. A timid media with a a vested interest in preserving the status quo is not going to achieve that.

FIA President elections

• Vatanen says “tide is turning” in his favour but fears voter intimidation
• Ari Vatanen: The man who would challenge Max Mosley (Video)
• Ari Vatanen: Exclusive interview on Mosley, budget caps and the F1 calendar
• Jean Todt vs Ari Vatanen (Poll)
• Max Mosley will give up FIA presidency – but he wants Jean Todt in charge

Ari Vatanen is standing against Jean Todt for FIA president

Ari Vatanen feels he is the front runner in the FIA president election race following Max Mosley’s letter urging people to vote for Jean Todt. Vatanen told this site:

It is very sad he has done this. But they know we are leading now. If he knew they were leading he would never write such a letter. This means the tide is turning. This is what happens in an election when you challenge the establishment.
Ari Vatanen

Mosley had previously written to Jordan motor sport chairman Prince Feisal Al Hussein to criticise Vatanen’s campaign:

Any thought that, after the election, everyone can unite and work together can now be forgotten. It is not possible to make statements like Vatanen’s and then expect the victims of insults and untruths to forget what has been said.

Vatanen will lose the election and lose badly, not least because he chose to denigrate the FIA and those currently in office rather than run a constructive and civilised campaign.
Max Mosley

Although he wouldn’t be drawn on exactly how many supporters he has, Vatanen admitted that some of them were those who had backed Mosley in the FIA vote of confidence in June last year.

He agreed that there are concerns over the fair running of the election in three weeks time. Specifically, he wants to ensure the ballot is secret to prevent delegates from being leant on to vote one way or another:

Obviously this is the key question because there is a fear of intimidation. Contrary to what Max Mosley says it cannot be foreseen how they will vote. They follow their heart and conscience.

The French laws are very good in this respect and we are seeking legal advice. It’s important that we know the ballot papers are going to be anonymous. They should not be given out in envelopes with the voters’ names on it.
Ari Vatanen

Vatanen and Todt bumped into each other on the grid at Singapore last weekend, but it looks like Bernie Ecclestone and FIA public relations chief Richard Woods were keen to keep them apart:

Is Mosley’s letter a sign the FIA outsider
Vatanen now has the upper hand? Have your say in the comments.

Ari Vatanen

• Ari Vatanen: Exclusive interview on Mosley, budget caps and the F1 calendar
• Ari Vatanen: The man who would challenge Max Mosley (Video)

Would Max Mosley be Jean Todt's choice for F1 Commissioner?

Reading Jean Todt’s FIA election manifesto, one line jumped out at me:

For each FIA World Championship we propose appointing a Commissioner responsible for the Federation’s day to day management and governance of the championship.

Now, who do you think Todt might have in mind for the job of F1 Commissioner?

One name springs to mind given what Todt has already told us his plans are for the FIA:

It is my intention to continue and expand the outstanding work of President Mosley, who for 16 years has worked tirelessly to strengthen the FIA‘s major motor sport championships and to position the FIA as the voice of the motoring public, actively promoting safe, clean and affordable mobility for all.

Mosley used the letter to the FIA confirming he would not stand for president again to endorse Todt as his preferred choice of successor – a move that angered Todt’s election rival Ari Vatanen.

In addition to the promise to set up commissioners for the different FIA world championships there is a proposal to set up a Stewards Review Group to look into the many examples of inconsistent, unjust and arbitrary justice (my language, not theirs) meted out in F1 and other championships.

Both these ideas may be fine in principle, but what matters is the people in charge. FOTA stuck to their guns to get rid of Mosley, and they (and most of the fans) will not be impressed to see him return by the back door.

Read more

• Jean Todt FIA election website
• Jean Todt vs Ari Vatanen (Poll)
• Ari Vatanen : Exclusive interview on Mosley, budget caps and the F1 calendar
• Ari Vatanen: The man who would challenge Max Mosley (Video)

Todt handed over the reigns at Ferrari to Domenicali before pursuing the FIA job

After beating Jean-Marie Balestre in 1991, Max Mosley never had to face an opponent in an FIA election.

But his successor will: this October Mosley’s preferred choice Jean Todt will stand against ‘independent candidate’ Ari Vatanen. But which is the right man for the job?

As I suspect will be the case for a lot of fans, Vatanen is the one I pick instictively because he’s not backed by Max Mosley.

I don’t know how Todt can keep a straight face when he talks about “the outstanding work of President Mosley, who for 16 years has worked tirelessly to strengthen the FIA’s major motorsport championships,” when all three major series – F1, the World Rally Championship and World Touring Car Championship – are beset by long-standing rows over their future technical rules which Mosley has singularly failed to resolve.

Anyone who looks at Mosley’s track record – particularly over the last four years – and concludes that what F1 needs is more of the same, is the last person who should be in charge of the sport.

I knew relatively little about Vatanen before I wrote an article about him last week for this site, and on the whole I liked what I found. Pragmatim and practicalities first, politics second – that sums up Vatanen’s style for me and it’s exactly what the FIA needs.

But make no mistake – the odds are against Vatanen. Todt can count on the support of the same allies of Mosley who last year felt even the ‘spankgate’ episode was not a good enough reason to depose him. He has revealed little about his campaign so far, and with the elections just three months away, he needs to make rapid progress. Todt has in all likelihood been groomed for this position by Mosley for several years. Vatanen told this site he first considered the position several years ago, but would he have done so had he not lost his EU Parliament seat?

Who are you hoping will win the election? Would you rather see a different candidate stand?

Read more

• Max Mosley will give up FIA presidency – but he wants Jean Todt in charge
• Ari Vatanen: Exclusive interview on Mosley, budgets caps and the F1 calendar
• Ari Vatanen: The man who would challenge Max Mosley