Amid all of the Turkish GP furor and accusations, comes a charming tale of former FIA president Max Mosley accusing Ferrari of trying to “fix” the sport of F1. Our monthly Mosley radar went off when the Daily Mail published a story with the accusations:
‘Luca does have this silly idea that if it is Ferrari then it is OK,’ claimed Mosley, 70.
‘When we had all this stuff about the double-diffuser he was on the phone every day saying, “You have got to sort out the Court of Appeal and make sure we win”.
‘He didn’t put it as baldly as that but that is what he said. I said, “Luca, I’m sorry but first of all they wouldn’t take any notice and secondly I am not going to do it”. I couldn’t. He took that quite personally. He honestly thought I would.’
Mosley does go on to suggest that Ferrari did expect special treatment using the 1999 incident that saw Ferrari using barge boards deemed illegal.
‘Ferrari won that appeal quite rightly on the technicality,’ said Mosley. ‘Two years later I was at the Turin Motor Show and I was invited into a little area where the Fiat (Ferrari’s parent company) people were and Gianni Agnelli (Fiat’s owner) himself came up to me. He said, “Thank you so much for what you did over the barge boards”. He honestly thought it had been fixed.’
We have all heard that Mosley is penning a tell-all book about his time in the FIA and one can presume this will be his swansong moment and the final chapter on his F1 career. What purpose it will serve is beyond my comprehension as a book shaming and blaming really serves no purpose at this point. If F1 were to take itself seriously and actually want to appear more “green”, perhaps they could start by closing the carbon exhalations of Mosley and save the environmental cost of printing this book. Ferrari saw fit to add their own take on this event by saying:
‘We don’t want to make any comment. It is better to look ahead and not waste time talking about what is – luckily – old and gone.’
Mosley is a sharp guy but I would very much appreciate his mustering some modicum of decorum and bowing out gracefully like a man of retirement should.
