Max Mosley

I started thinking seriously about it a year ago. Obviously you can't stop immediately. I decided by spring this year that 2005 would definitely be it and that I wouldn't stand (for election) again. Then in the last four weeks I suddenly thought that if I could find a way of doing the F1 thing, then I should stop. The real decision was made about three weeks ago.


The answer to the first question is yes. And the answer to the second question is that happily under these procedures I've outlined under the Concorde Agreement (the technical working group requiring measures to reduce performance on safety grounds), they don't need to agree.

There is a new clause in the Concorde Agreement introduced in the '98 agreement following the problems we had when Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger were killed, and it enables us, if we believe the cars are unacceptably fast, to require them to produce measures. And if they fail to produce them, to impose them ourselves. So what we've been saying is that it's unlikely that they will agree on measures that were acceptable because it needs eight of them, so that means we are going to impose measures and what we are doing to try and be helpful is telling them the measures that we will eventually impose if that happens, but quite early, so that those teams that want to, can start working on their cars, but even more importantly on their engines, in good time.


I much appreciate that, but I'm not a Formula 1 team principal so I don't change my mind every few minutes...


There will be an election of the entire body and if there is more than one candidate they will have a vote.


I think there are probably a number of people who see themselves as the possible successor and I would probably cause deep offence if I was to name one or two! On the question of what I'm going to do, once I stop I won't do very much, but eventually I'd like to be involved in things like road safety to some extent. I don't want to work as hard as I have been.

It looks as if one goes around in jets and limos but the real job is that you get into the office about 9am and work solidly till about seven in the evening. And I'm someone who works quite quickly - in fact too quickly sometimes, when I don't read things properly. But it's massively hard work. It's all of the road side, the racing side and endless difficulties and quarrels in countries about who has the sporting power. It's absolutely never-ending and at a certain point you start thinking that there's more to life than this. And also, if you are losing interest a little bit, it's better to stop - you don't perform well if you're not 100% engaged.

In a way it's kind of sad but things move on and people and circumstances change. I think the worst thing one can do when you get over 60, as I am, is to hang on. I'm happy, looking forward to the next phase, reading whatever books I want to read, having time to do things that are interesting. I'll still be very interested in motor sport but I won't feel the terrible weight of responsibility that I've got to make it happen or maybe it won't happen. If you think about the number of jobs and the number of people involved, it is actually a big responsibility. You feel a lot of the time that you mustn't make a mistake, and we all make mistakes.




Because there were not 18 votes in the F1 Commission in favour of doing so. There were two conditions to get that done. One was that the teams had to be unanimously in favour -- and there was a bit of paper with all their signatures on it. Then it goes to the F1 Commission, requiring 18 of 26 votes to carry something, and as I recall it was about 12 and therefore didn't go through.


It's decided by the FIA itself, in effect our technical people, and we'd obviously then put the vote to the World Council because they are the ultimate arbiters. But I think the chance of the teams agreeing on measures that eight of them are prepared to subscribe to, is extremely remote on past experience


It will be a two-race engine, so a two-race engine for '05 and the V8s will be two-race also.


The best estimate is that these 2.4s will give 700bhp, so that's more than we saw as the maximum from a 3.0-litre in '94, it's more than we had in F1 until quite recently. It's only in the last 7-8 years that we've seen over 700bhp. In the early 1960s it was 200bhp and then Cosworth V8s were very successful at about 450bhp. If you look at the lap times seven years ago compared to now, you see a difference of 7-9s on an 80s lap, which is really, really fast. But watching the slower cars you won't tell the difference. You won't look at them and think that they are slower but you will notice when there is an accident in a fast corner bearing in mind that the energy builds up as a square of the speed. There is too much energy to dissipate and that's why we are on the limit of our safety. It won't change the spectacle, the sound or the feel, what it will do is reduce the probability that we will get a driver seriously injured or killed. Or, even worse if I may say that, some member of the public, marshal, or uninvolved person. We've got to keep the cars under control.


A happy by-product of the 2.4-litre engine and reducing power is that it will significantly reduce the cost of the engines because one of the problems is the way the power goes up each year. We were all told back in '94, when we went down from 3.5 litres to 3.0 litres, that you will never see more than 600-650bhp - the laws of physics and so on - but now we're over 900bhp and there's this sort of 4% increase each year. If you greatly restrict the areas in which you can operate, eliminate all exotic materials, specify the dimensions of significant elements of the engines, then you cut down the areas of research. That does two things: 1) reduces the amount of horsepower gained per dollar spent, and, 2) Also reduces the incentive to spend large numbers of dollars.

Put another way, if you think of it as a graph of performance against cost, you want the slope to be almost flat if you possibly can. Otherwise it becomes a money-spending competition, which arguably it now just about is. We need to stop that. So in fact the two things work together.

What we are proposing on the tyres will also greatly reduce costs in all sorts of ways. And if we bring in certain restrictions on the chassis it will cut down the R&D in the wind tunnel; but one day if I was still in charge I would attack that whole wind tunnel aerodynamic situation because it is immensely expensive. But we can't do everything at once. The other great expense is testing and really the teams have got to reach an agreement. If they don't, they will be putting themselves in great difficulty. But I think they are very close to doing that.


The answer to the first question is that between now and 2007 the Concorde Agreement is fully in force but we are now going to have some massive changes to the technical regulations and we need them because of the excessive performance of the cars.

They will have an influence over the sporting rules, the famous qualifying for example, and if we are going to have a new system for 2005 - and I suspect we will - then we have to agree in the usual way. You need about half the teams and all the promoters and the other people on the F1 Commission. They will continue to have a say but as far as I'm concerned, it won't be my problem, but I believe they should still have a say after 2008 but I think it should be on simple majority.

I think we should put something forward with two elements - a simple majority of teams in favour to stop people doing something completely mad, and on top of that we should have periods of notice consistent with the work we are asking them to do. So if it's anything to do with engines it's got to be at least 18 months, which is recognised as the right period. If it's anything to do with the chassis, then probably one year. For any sporting regulation probably more like six months bearing in mind that some have an effect on the configuration of the car. I'm all for people discussing, but what we've got now, unanimous agreement, is impossible. The result is that we have cars now that are not ideal.


At the time, working for the teams, it was very good, but I think that from the point of view of the governing body and also F1 in general, I wouldn't go as far as to say it was a mistake, but I think it has become obsolete. My personal opinion is that what you need is an honest, competent, disinterested governing body not hampered in what they do.

One shouldn't continually have to find ingenious ways of bringing regulations in, or have to wait as we have now until there is a serious safety problem before you can do something. It was necessary to bring some sort of stability because the people running the FIA at the time didn't all have a very thorough knowledge of what was necessary or possible in F1. Some of the teams might say that's still the case, but I wouldn't agree.




It is very surprising actually but what one has to bear in mind is that they have all become extremely rich because the board on which they play has been arranged by somebody else. I can say this now because I'm on my way soon, but Bernie has created, if you like, a monopoly board for them to play on, where the money is just enormous ands they've made huge sums, but fundamentally they are not businessmen and are not trying to make money.

They just long to win races. I could name two of them who are businessmen and successful ones, but the overall atmosphere there is: I just want to win the race, so if I've got $50 million sponsorship, I'll spend $51 million and borrow a million. They don't think, I've got $50 million so I'll spend $40 million and put $10 million in my pocket. They just don't think in those terms.

Some of them have been made rich despite themselves because they've been given so much money that they couldn't actually manage to spend it, but it is not a deliberate business strategy, put it like that. When they all get in a room they all sit there and everyone is thinking of his current interest, his current car, and they defend it to the death. That's why you need a disinterested body that tries to be fair between everybody and sort the problems out. It's just hopeless trying to get them to agree because they've got their vested interests to defend.


I'm very optimistic and in a sense I'm leaving at a critical time, but in leaving I'm doing that which has to be done. As it happens they've opened the door because they've increased the performance to such a point that we are fully entitled to take drastic measures and those measures will solve the problems. What will happen is that the engines will be cheaper and the cars will be slower.

The racing will get better because the tyres will be harder and it will be possible to run off-line, the braking distances will increase because there will be less grip and the aerodynamics will be such that apart from reducing the speeds in fast corners and ensuring they don't go too fast on the straight, it will also be conducive to overtaking and close racing.

Taking all those things together I'm very optimistic for the future, I think it will be very successful. I think we will get two new teams in and I think two or three engine manufacturers once we see these changes for 2006 are going to happen.

They (the manufacturers) will probably say we're going to leave and so on. They won't leave. They'll stay because in the end all we are doing is putting the greater emphasis on cleverness, on brain work, and reducing the emphasis on money. No manufacturer can admit that even if he's got the money, he hasn't got the brains. They won't actually leave. There will be talk of that but when you hear it, take no notice, it won't happen.

I'm very optimistic and think F1 is completely set on the right path. These drastic measures -- and make no mistake they are drastic -- are necessary, but once they've been done it will be set on a sensible course and we then have to hope that we are not unlucky between now and when these measures take full effect and have a really serious accident. Unfortunately that can happen because we can never eliminate the danger. We are really in the business of reducing the probability. But it won't be until the beginning of 2006 that these regulations can take full effect.


None. It would be a matter for the F1 Commission and they would have to vote in favour. But it is only a sporting rule and it could be changed by a majority in the F1 Commission. What that really comes down to is half the teams plus the organisers. But I am very optimistic that we will see two new teams in F1 by 2006 and they, too, will benefit from the possibility of having a limited V10 3-litre if they can't get a 2.4 V8 in that time.


The change that was suggested for the statutes was that at the moment we have a president of the whole FIA, then a deputy president of the automobile side, as we call it, the road car side, and then a deputy president for sport. I suggested to them, but for after I'd gone, that they might be better of having an overall president sport and no deputy president touring, which was the original structure of the FIA all the way through.

Really, Jean-Marie Balestre was the first person who held both offices, then I did, but we also built the two pillar structure. But the classic structure was a president, like for example Metternich in the early days of Balestre and then a president of sport like Balestre was in those days. Or before that there was Metternich and Ugeaux. There's a whole history of it. It was just a question of going back to that structure.

But the sport people all started writing to me saying that if we do that it would be difficult if not impossible for somebody from the sport to be an acting president of the FIA. That certainly wasn't the intention and I don't believe it would have been the effect, but once I got those letters I simply wrote to everyone saying it's not a problem, if you've got better ideas we'll withdraw it and that's what we did. We simply said to the general assembly that with the agreement of the senate we'll withdraw that proposal and most of them were quite content to leave it as it is. The president can then decide how much he delegates to each of the two deputy presidents.

The vote on the karting was quite funny because what's unfortunately happened with karting is that the FIA has largely lost control of it because its not been well managed. We had a working group trying to come up with measures to get it back under control and have both two and four-stroke engines inside the FIA. When it came to the vote larger numbers of the World Council didn't want to do that, they wanted to stay with the existing structure, which is fine.

I've seen it reported occasionally in the press as though something was significant but it wasn't, it's a completely trivial matter. There was only one vote in the World Council on June 30, which was the vote in favour of giving notice to the F1 Technical Working Group that we've got to do something, and fortunately that was unanimous.


I would have liked a tyre monopoly but at present we can't see a reason to introduce it to reduce the performance when we can do this by regulation. So we are going to reduce the performance by making the tyres last longer and be therefore harder. If that doesn't work we would have to look at a monopoly but at the moment the best advice is that it will work.


I think I'd like to be remembered as someone who moved the agenda forward in motor sport as far as safety and the general running of the thing is concerned, and repositioned the FIA as a major force in road cars, it's fundamental purpose and made a difference to the safety of the everyday road user. Which I think in all modesty we can claim to have done.

It's 13 years that have been worthwhile, as well as 13 years that have been extremely enjoyable. Obviously, meetings of the F1 Commission apart, on the whole it's been fascinating and an enormous privilege to be allowed to do that. For someone with an interest in motor sport it's probably the most privileged position one could imagine. But equally, if you have that you've got to know when to stop and I think that moment is probably here.