During an informal press conference at BMW Sauber’s hospitality area on the Thursday prior to the Bahrain Grand Prix, reporters peppered BMW Motorsport Director Mario Theissen with one question after another about FIA President Max Mosley.
Finally, a BMW PR man said: “Are there any questions about sport?”
On Friday, when Lewis Hamilton crashed heavily but escaped injury, it again brought home the fact that we were at a race. But much of the weekend was consumed by the growing sex scandal surrounding Mosley.
The F-1 paddock could be divided into two groups: those who thought that Mosley should quit immediately, and those who declined to comment on the subject.
The drivers, at least publicly, were all in the latter group.
Red Bull Racing told Mark Webber he could not talk to the media about the Mosley affair.
“I suppose you are going to ask me about Max?” Webber said when reporters talked to him on Thursday. “I have nothing to say about Max.
“I am sure that it has been well documented by everyone, and I couldn’t possibly add anything further!”
I am sure you could try, prompted one scribe, to which Webber replied: “I am gagged.”
At an official FIA press conference on Thursday, Nick Heidfeld, Hamilton, Jarno Trulli and Nico Rosberg, no doubt instructed by their teams, all said “no comment” when questioned about Mosley.
Asked if, in general, senior figures in sports and business should maintain the highest standards of conduct in order to fulfill their duties with integrity and respect, Trulli and Heidfeld declined to answer.
“If you’re a figure like us who are racing drivers or something, you’ve got to try and set a good example,” Rosberg said.
Hamilton agreed: “[It’s] key to set a good example. We all, especially the young people, we are always looking up to someone to show us the way, and [to] set a good example is the best way of saying it.”
Mosley’s first action after the news of the sex scandal broke was to apologize to member clubs and representatives of the FIA for his actions, but he added that he will not resign.
“Not content with publicizing highly personal and private activities, which are, to say the least, embarrassing, a British tabloid newspaper published the story with the claim that there was some sort of Nazi connotation to the matter,” Mosley’s said in a letter. “This is entirely false.
“It is against the law in most countries to publish details of a person’s private life without good reason. The publications by The News of the World are a wholly unwarranted invasion of my privacy, and I intend to issue legal proceedings against the newspaper in the UK and other jurisdictions.”
While he intends to sue the newspaper, Mosley, who is married and has two sons, said: “Above all I need to repair the damage to my immediate family who are the innocent and unsuspecting victims of this deliberate and calculated personal attack.”
Mosley said he has “received a very large number of messages of sympathy and support from those within the FIA and the motorsports and motoring communities generally, suggesting that my private life is not relevant to my work and that I should continue in my role.”
Can Mosley continue in his role as chief of all racing and automobiles worldwide? Surely he has lost far too much respect in just a week to ever resume his duties.