Former Champion Sir Jackie Stewart Blames Mosley And Ecclestone For Climate Of Disillusionment In F1
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Sir Jackie Stewart, the triple Formula One world champion, who last stood on top of the motor racing world in 1973, the year he retired, is in a unique position to run the rule over the sport. His racing record speaks for itself. He has been a team owner, he has worked for, and still represents, some of the biggest sponsors in the business and he is a household name whose career links the modern day with the 1960s and early 1970s in Formula One when friends of his such as Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt and François Cevert raced and died alongside him.
Unafraid to say the unsayable, he has no doubt that both Max Mosley, the president of the FIA, the world governing body of motorsport, and Bernie Ecclestone, the sport’s commercial rights-holder, have made enormous contributions.
But it is long past the point, he says, when both should have left the stage. Stewart blames them for what he calls a climate of disillusionment in Formula One and believes that a reappraisal of the distribution of revenue, of the administration and the commercial relationships at the heart of motor racing’s most prestigious championship, is long overdue.
“The era of big change is now essential because the sport has grown larger than either the governors or the commercial-rights holders. And that’s just a fact,” says Stewart, still the owner of one of the most distinctive Scottish brogues in the land. “It has taken too long to achieve the things it should have achieved years ago and that other sports have long ago matured to, and other sports have prepared themselves more fully for the opportunities that have come their way.”
Then came the thorny issue of Mosley. The FIA president has no time for Stewart and outraged many in motor racing and beyond in September 2007 by ridiculing the profoundly dyslexic Scot as a “certified half-wit” who dressed like a “music hall artist” and who never has a chance to listen because he never stops talking, remarks for which Mosley has not apologised.
Stewart, for his part, still believes, as he did when the scandal over Mosley first broke, that his arch-critic should resign, and not only that. “I think Max should remove himself from the FIA completely and from motorsport and the motor industry,” he says. “The FIA should replace him with somebody not from within its organisation or even within motorsport. They should go out and headhunt a CEO who is going to rebuild the structure in line with modern practice to satisfy the investors in the sport and to give the FIA total transparency.”
Stewart believes that the huge fine meted out to McLaren would not have happened had Mosley not been in charge and he finds it incredible that Mosley and almost all the senior figures in the FIA are, at least in nominal terms, unpaid, part-time amateurs. Yet they preside over the most capital-intensive and professional sport in the world.
He said Ecclestone played a key role in making F1 what it is today, “but having done it, he now rules and nobody is up for taking on a battle with him”.
“Bernie has such power and influence that he could suffocate almost any performer who would dare to suggest that there must be change,” Stewart said, while also complaining that there was no plan for when the 78-year-old retires.
“He has been so used to total control that if you look at his structure you have to ask yourself ‘is there a successor?’ and you would say ‘no’. That is wrong. The commercial reality has to be recognised ... and there has be continuity that the ageing process makes necessary,” Stewart said.
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