Planet-F1

Bernie Sees More Pain For Max

Sunday 1st June 2008

For a man famous for very short sentences, Bernie Ecclestone was at his most lucid when speaking to the Daily Telegraph at the end of last week. Bernie was talking about the subject that has preoccupied him and a lot of the people in motorsport over the last two months. What to do with Max Mosley.

Unless Max has a dramatic change of mind at the last moment - and with all the FIA delegates travel plans firmly in place that seems unlikely - Max's competency will be put to the test on June 3rd. If the FIA votes to remove him, then F1 will breathe a collective sigh of relief, though more at the BMW, McLaren, Honda and Toyota end of the pitlane than the Ferrari end it has to be pointed out. If they vote to keep him, then we will have all kinds of ructions in the sport.

Because the fact is that civic dignitaries; the great and the good who attend races, don't want to be seen with him. Whether its the Crown Prince of Bahrain or Prince Albert of Monaco, being seen with a practicing sado-masochistic with alleged Nazi tendencies is not good for the profile. They say all news is good news - not really.

As Pete Gill outlined in his previous feature on Max, he can hardly complain about the way the information got into the public domain, when he was quite happy to disregard the conventions of legal evidence gathering when compiling the Spygate case against McLaren.

Mosley's continued failure to resign actually further reinforces the view that he's not fit to serve as FIA president. What's more, it calls into question his judgements in the past. Were they made with the best interests of the sport in mind or the best interests of Max in mind? Did he stick to a particular policy - such as the banning of green technologies 10 years ago - because it gave an advantage to a team he didn't like? That may not be the case - but now you begin to wonder.

Ecclestone is convinced that Max's stubborn stand will severely undermine any good he has done in the past. What's more, he is alienating the big businesses in sport whose paymasters have to operate under much stricter rules.

"Since the story broke I have been under enormous pressure from the people who invest in Formula One, sponsors and manufacturers, over this issue," Ecclestone told the Daily Telegraph. "They point out that as a chief executive or chief operating officer of a major company they would have gone either immediately, or within 24 hours, in the same circumstances. They cannot understand why Max has not done the same.

"Max is a strong man. Once he makes a decision he sticks to it. He feels that there is still important work to do at the FIA. But in my view there is a way to accomplish this and retire at the end of the year at the FIA general assembly in November. I would be happy to sit at his side to help him to achieve that.

"He should stand down out of responsibility for the institution he represents, including F1. Everyone who I speak to in a position of authority across F1 rings me to say he should leave. It is regretful that he has not made that decision. The big problem is that he can no longer represent the FIA worldwide because of these incidents," Ecclestone said. "The general feeling is that people would no longer be comfortable speaking to him in the same way.

"My wife had invited Max to her birthday party, (but) she was told to ask Max not to appear because of the embarrassment it might cause to a number of corporate guests. She was extremely upset about that, but she accepted she had to speak to him. It was very difficult for her to do that.

"Max is being punished for the wrong reasons. He has done a first-class job as president. Like all of us he has made some mistakes but 90 per cent of the decisions he has taken have been to the benefit of all. He deserves to be remembered for all the positive work he has done, not for an expose in a tabloid newspaper. That is why he should announce his decision to resign now and not go through with a vote of confidence. That is not in his best interests, the FIA's or the sport's."

Perhaps Max realises that it is already too late to be remembered for anything except appearing with five vice girls in a sordid S&M romp, such is the way we remember things. British weatherman Michael Fish had a career of comptetent weather forecasting but is only remembered for the BBC report where he laughed off a viewer's enquiry that there might be a hurricane overnight - and there was a hurricane overnight.

When he retires, John Terry won't be remembered for the hundreds of key tackles or crucial goals he has scored, he'll be remembered for slipping over when he could have won the European Champions League trophy with a penalty.

Only Max knows how many people have really written to him expressing their support. It might be less than he's made out and hence he wants to push the issue as far as he can - in the words of the Dylan Thomas poem he does not want to "go gentle into that good night", he wants to "rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Or he may be pushing for a vote because he thinks he stands a very good chance of winning. June 3rd will certainly be another momentous day for F1 and for world motosport.

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