Max Mosley looks out wearily at the deep blue sea that can be seen from his office in Monaco. It is an unusually mild afternoon on the shimmering French coast and, with a wry little laugh, Mosley compares the latest black hole of controversy that threatens to engulf Formula One with a mundane domestic chore from his own troubled life at home in England. “My wife says it’s just like housework,” Mosley murmurs. “It’s never done. There’s always something …”
Down in the dying days of Mosley’s long and contentious reign over Formula One, which will finally come to an end next month, the latest “something” is arguably the darkest charge yet laid against the sport. Nelson Piquet Jr has alleged that, last September, he obeyed Renault team orders and deliberately crashed in order to stop the Singapore grand prix. The safety car was brought out and, in the process, Piquet’s team-mate, Fernando Alonso, gained an unfair advantage and went on to win the race. If proven, the credibility of the sport will be ruined for years – a fact Mosley acknowledges as president of the FIA, motor racing’s governing body.
“Yes,” he says when asked if this is the most disturbing accusation of chicanery and deception he has yet encountered in his 18 years in charge of F1. “If it turns out to be true then obviously it is very serious. It’s the sort of thing we don’t want – but we haven’t heard the defence yet. All we’ve heard so far is the ‘prosecution’ and it always sounds bad when you just hear one side of the story. Sometimes these things can turn out to be very different when you hear the defence. I’m genuinely keeping an open mind on it.”
But he was surely shocked when hearing Piquet’s account? “Quite,” Mosley says softly. “But two or three months earlier I’d heard this allegation was floating around. Of course there was nothing one could do then because there was no evidence – it was all rumour. So I knew the allegation existed but, yes, I was quite surprised they were actually prepared to come forward and make it.
Flavio Briatore, the team principal at Renault, has the most to lose next Monday. And after some of his bitter spats with the FIA, and rival teams, the suggestion has been made that many in this seething world of fast cars and low morals would enjoy seeing Briatore take a fall.
“He’s rung two or three times since this started,” Mosley says of Briatore. “He has a different point of view but we didn’t really go into all the details. At Monza [where the Italian grand prix was held on Sunday] everybody was saying, ‘Oh, this is terrible for Formula One.’ Well, perhaps, but it would be more terrible if we did nothing.”
The Formula One circus will continue next year, without Mosley, for his imminent retirement meant that the teams, led by Briatore and other principals, withdrew their threat to break away and form their own championship. Mosley, however, suggests that any triumph felt at his apparent demise should be curbed by the possibility that at least two more manufacturers might follow Honda and BMW out of the sport.
“I know the feeling and that’s why retirement will be a big relief. The work is absolutely non-stop and I always feel I haven’t really done what I should’ve done. And I am tired of the battling. It’s more or less, in different guises, the same problems with the same people and you’re never going to finish. At a certain point it’s time to stop. I think the FIA members would re-elect me if I stood but I am getting too old [at 69]. You’ve only got a limited amount of time left before you drop off – and do you really want to spend it solving other people’s problems?”
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