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 Max Mosley rides out the stormBy Kevin Garside
Last Updated: 1:00am GMT 02/11/2007
His parents were married in the presence of Adolf Hitler in the drawing room of Joseph Goebbels. At 11 weeks old he was packed off to live with relatives when Mum and Dad were banged up in the respective slammers of Holloway and Brixton as a consequence of their Fascist associations. With baggage like that nailed to Max Rufus Mosley's coat tails, the head of Formula One's ruling body, the FIA, is unlikely to be discomfited by the flak resulting from his pot shots at British grand prix heroes Lewis Hamilton and Sir Jackie Stewart.
Mosley is an English eccentric in the classic sense, a son of the British aristocracy for whom life may have taken a different turn were it not for the fatal political choices made by his father Sir Oswald, the sixth baronet of a title established in 1720, who somehow converted a brilliant start at the Palace of Westminster in the early part of the 20th century into disaster as leader of the British Union of Fascists. As he wanders through the corridors of F1 power firing random broadsides in the direction of unnecessary targets, there are plenty writing off Mosley as a genetic throwback. He can't help himself, they say. Only Bernie Ecclestone, Formula One's commercial rights holder, comes close to Mosley in terms of stature and intrigue. Together, over a period of 40 years, the pair have fashioned F1 into the multi-billion pound business we know today. Beyond tutoring at home, Mosley had no formal education until he was 13 at which point he was dispatched to Germany speaking no German. Two years later he returned fluent in Deutsch before eventually going up to Christ Church, Oxford, via Millfield and a tutorial college in London. It was there, as a teenager indulging in the Soho jazz scene that laid the template for the Swinging Sixties, that Mosley's unique character found expression.
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There is no part of Formula One with which Mosley is not intimate. He has raced, owned and run a grand prix team, and since 1991 held the presidency of Formula One's regulatory body. It is in the latter role that Mosley has excelled, the odd misplaced barb notwithstanding. By his own admission he wasn't up to much as a driver. An introduction to Silverstone in the early Sixties via tickets bought by his wife led to instant gratification. He encountered a world where his name meant nothing. Indeed, fellow entrants in club races assumed he was the son of a coach builder Alf Mosley from Leicester. He trained on sufficiently to contest the same 1968 Formula Two race at Hockenheim in which Jim Clark died. He was persuaded to call it a day behind the wheel after his Lotus fell to pieces at high speed 12 months later at the Nurburgring and a brake disc sheared shortly afterwards at Snetterton. Mosley, by now a practising barrister, turned his attention to team ownership. With his old friends from Oxford, Alan Rees, Graham Coaker and Robin Herd, he formed March, good enough to finish third in the 1970 World Championship with, irony of ironies, a "certified halfwit" at the wheel. In 1971 March propelled Ronnie Peterson to second in the drivers' championship. Mosley quickly became entrenched in the politics of the sport as a member of the Formula One Constructors and Entrants Association (F1CA, later FOCA), alongside Ecclestone. The enemies were the race organisers and F1's ruling body, then the CSI (Commission Sportif International); the battleground money and regulations. Thirty years on, the boot was on the other foot, but with Ecclestone representing the commercial interest, the pair had the political arena squared off. These days Mosley cloaks communications with Ecclestone in official terms. But the pair speak daily. "It is true to say that Bernie and I are friends, and always have been. We don't agree about everything to start with but after discussion usually reach an accommodation." Formula One is simply too small for Mosley's rampant intellect and vibrant imagination. He has widened the scope of his role by adding a political dimension through the FIA's global work in road safety. But episodically, on quiet days, he drifts into mischief. Stewart and Hamilton were unfortunate targets. Stewart, in particular, is owed an apology, but probably won't receive one. As the Old Testament proverb tells us, pride comes before a fall. Motormouth Mosley Mosley on Lewis Hamilton: "There is always somebody new. If it wasn't him it would be either [Nico] Rosberg or [Robert] Kubica or one of the other new stars, a [Sebastian] Vettel, would suddenly be the big one. So I think there is a tendency to exaggerate the importance of Lewis Hamilton." Mosley on Sir Jackie Stewart: "He goes around dressed up as a Thirties music hall man." On his family history: "There was always a certain amount of trouble [being the son of Sir Oswald] until I came into motor racing. In one of [my] first races... there was a list of people when they put the practice times up. All the competitors in that class... [looked] at the list and they came to my name and I heard somebody say, 'Mosley, Max Mosley; he must be some relation of Alf Mosley, the coachbuilder.' And I thought to myself, 'I've found a world where they don't know about Oswald Mosley.' And it has always been a bit like that in motor racing: nobody gives a darn." On his own driving career: "Ayrton Senna told me, 'I've been doing this since I was six', and I think Michael Schumacher is probably similar. Then it's second nature. The failed racing drivers among us would have done better, probably, if we'd started at six." On Minardi chief Paul Stoddart's comments regarding 'Indy-gate': "Stoddart is a sad case. I helped him tremendously when the other teams were trying to steal his money. But now my reaction is that he's obviously forgotten to take his medication." On attempts to cut costs in F1: "If it didn't waste money on pointless, hidden and duplicated technology, F1 would be an immensely profitable business. Instead it is living on subsidies from the car industry and hand-outs from friendly billionaires." On F1 governance: "The FIA has better things to do than save the F1 teams from their own folly." "There's a big problem with F1. You can make it absolutely fair, but then it will usually be dull." On Silverstone: "We just want to see a proper circuit. I can't go along with the idea that so long as [it] isn't demonstrably the worst circuit in the world, everything is all right." 
Comments
The article on Max Mosley by Kevin Garside was excellent and we all know how difficult the influences of parents can be. Well, I think he's a jolly fine fellow, what? Nobody can be held responsible for his parents's conduct. Storm? What storm? Apparently Mosley is in
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