Planet-F1

Max: The Good And The Bad Stuff

Wednesday 7th May 2008

With Max Mosley's failure to do "the decent thing" and resign, both Alain Prost and Jean Todt have called upon FIA delegates to judge Max on his record of achievements and look beyond his adulterous misdemeanours with five vice girls. We look at the bad and the good.

10 Things Max Could Have Done Better
1.In the middle of European Commission scrutiny about the FIA's anti-competitive behaviour, he sold F1's television rights to Bernie Ecclestone for 100 years. This was heralded by some as safeguarding the future of the FIA but - given the spiralling value of television rights - many saw it as selling the family jewellery.

2. Mosley's banning of energy recovery systems 10 years ago has literally put the sport back 10 years. Now the FIA are introducing them under the banner of making F1 more green, but the sport could have pioneered green technology instead of trailing along behind.

3. He has failed to modernise the way motorsport is governed. Last year we got the unedifying sight of Mosley going round quoting "sporting fairness" in the spygate saga yet the Ferrari team have a position on the World Motorsport Council. It is like Manchester United or Barcelona football clubs sitting in on UEFA committee meetings and voting about the way football is governed.

4. Mosley's alleged intervention at the disastrous 2005 USGP. When there was a doubt about the safety of the Michelin tyre the teams had agreed a compromise with Bernie Ecclestone to install a chicane but it is said that Mosley intervened at the last minute and threatened all kinds of sanctions if the race went ahead. Result: a lot of unhappy spectators and the sport damaged in an important market for a lot of the teams. And Max was supposed to be an advocate of driver safety...

5. Mosley's big thing for the future of F1 was saving money by having customer cars. This clearly wasn't thought through as the 12th team to fill the 23rd and 24th spaces on the grid (ProDrive) never arrived, the 21st and 22nd (Super Aguri) looks in doubt, and even Toro Rosso seem to be unsure whether they can become a constructor as their predecessor, Minardi, was.

6. One of Max's great assertions of the late 90s was that F1 should be viewed like an interesting game of chess - and that it is about tactics and strategy, not about overtaking. An idea not much loved by the people who'd paid a lot of money for the TV rights - chess not being that popular a TV sport.

7. Whereas other branches of motorsport enjoy competition between tyre manufacturers, F1 has lost the intrigue of a Michelin vs Bridgestone battle thanks to the FIA's ruling that it should have just one manufacturer.

8. One of Max's previous ideas to shake up the World Championship was to have drivers move from team to team at each grand prix. Lewis Hamilton would be at McLaren one race and Ferrari the next.

9. In an era where professional sport is governed by professional and independent referees, Max has failed to set up a system that is judged by people other than cheerful amateurs, supervised now by his own representative.

10. Bizarre rules about who was and who was not allowed to drive for teams in the World Rally Championship led to the curtailment of Colin Mcrae's rally career.

Five Good Things Max Has Done
1. The FIA's promotion of the Euro NCAP testing standards has been the single biggest achievement fo Max.

2. His intervention in the 'Italian authorities versus Frank Williams/Patrick Head/Adrian Newey' case brought the Senna enquiry to a final conclusion after it had rumbled on for years.

3. His continued advocacy for safety standards in the sport, in particular the HANS device that undoubtedly save Robert Kubica from more serious injury at last year's Canadian GP.

4. Money saving in F1 by insisting on two-race engines, four-race gearboxes, engine freezes, a common ECU etc.

5. The level of medical intervention at hand at a grand prix is very high - a cause championed by both Max and Bernie Ecclestone.

Frank Hopkinson