Max Mosley will continue as FIA president after winning a vote of confidence during a meeting of the FIA general assembly in Paris on June 3. In a secret ballot, 103 FIA member clubs voted in favor of Mosley and 55 were against him.
While many of the major auto clubs, such as the AAA in the USA, wanted Mosley to resign following lurid revelations of his private life in the News of the World tabloid, many of the clubs in the smaller countries continue to support him.
In the F-1 world, the first reaction was to get on with business.
However, Bernie Ecclestone, a longtime Mosley ally, wants Mosley to resign.
“I knew he would win — there was no way he could lose,” Ecclestone told The Independent. “But I still don’t think it’s good for him, or for the FIA. Max should stand down in November.
“For me, it’s a difficult situation because I run the F-1 Group of companies, and the teams — the manufacturers — are violently opposed to him. But 62 percent of the automobile clubs that make up the FIA voted to retain him.”
Ecclestone says that Mosley will not have an easy time leading in the coming months.
“Max has always ruled by fear,” Ecclestone said. “But I think more people will be likely to take him on after this.”
Talk of a breakaway F-1 series surfaced during the Canadian Grand Prix weekend as the team bosses discussed the future direction of F-1 with commercial boss Ecclestone, and what role the FIA should play given that the disgraced Mosley will remain in power.
After the first of two meetings Ecclestone had with the teams, British newspapers reported that he had suggested that if Mosley does not resign they may think about a breakaway series.
“You are joking!” a straight-faced Ecclestone said when reporters raised the subject. “Are you serious?”
I then put the question to Ecclestone: Are you serious about a breakaway series?
“Nobody has discussed a breakaway series,” he replied. “We are discussing what we put in the Concorde Agreement, which we have been two years trying to get signed. And these guys (the teams) can never make up their minds.”
The Concorde Agreement, which has been around in various forms since 1981, is the document signed by the teams, Ecclestone [as the commercial rights holder] and the FIA that lays out the rules on how F-1 is run. It has expired and the various sides can’t agree on a new one.
“It should be straightforward, but there are too many egos and strong personalities involved,” one team principal told me, “plus, there is a power struggle going on between Bernie and Max.”
Mosley is determined that the new agreement gives the FIA the ability to veto any sort of total buyout of F-1 by the commercial rights holders Ecclestone and the CVC company.
“I think Max would really like a Concorde Agreement that is a little bit more suited to the FIA,” Ecclestone said.
The teams are the ones blocking an agreement, according to Ecclestone, but McLaren’s Ron Dennis and others strongly denied that.
“I don’t think there is much disharmony in the teams’ views as what should be contained in a Concorde Agreement,” Dennis said. “I don’t think that the teams are the blockage, in any shape or form, to getting it done.”
There has been talk of a breakaway series before, in 1980 and most recently with the manufacturers’ now defunct GPWC group, but the logistics are a huge hurdle. In general, the teams support having the FIA as the ruling body of F-1.