A furious Max Mosley is kicking up a storm in the aftermath of Wednesday’s World Motorsport Council hearing in which agreement was finally brokered between the FIA and the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) over the future of Formula One.
Using a letter to FIA club members, which was leaked to an online news service, the FIA President lashed out at the teams for misrepresenting the peace deal in the media.
Now he has launched a personal attack on FOTA President Luci Di Montezemolo after speaking to British national newspapers and revealing that he is under pressure to re-stand for election in October because of the affair.
“By going home to Italy and telling the Italian media that they had toppled the dictator, di Montezemolo has tried to make it sound like I sit here and just decide what’s going to happen. It’s absolutely not true,” Mosley told the Mail on Sunday.
“I can’t do anything unless the WMSC agree and there are 26 members, mostly presidents of important motorsport clubs from all over the world. All these rules that I am supposed to have dictated have been voted on by those people. To say that I run a dictatorship is nonsense.
“I don’t really expect Luca will apologies or withdraw in the way that he should. Yet, on the other hand, within the motor sport world nobody takes him seriously. He’s seen as what the Italians call a “bella figura”. He’s chairman of Fiat but the serious individual who runs it is Sergio Marchionne, and I don’t suppose he takes much notice of Luca.”
Mosley has alluded to strong support from within FIA should he choose to re-stand for the presidency in October.
“They (the teams) made the mistake of dancing on my grave before I was buried,” Mosely added. “It’s no good the teams getting a PR agency to claim I am dead and buried when I am standing here as large as life. I am under pressure now from all over the world to stand for re-election.
“I do genuinely want to stop. But if there is going to be a big conflict with the car industry, for example, with the FOTA teams, then I won’t stop. I will do whatever I have to do. It’s not in my nature to walk away from a fight.”
