No going back for Mosley

"I've just reached the point where I no longer find it interesting or satisfying to sit in long meetings, particularly with the F1 teams and World Rally Championship teams, where people often agree things and then go way after the meeting and change their minds completely." Mosley explained.

Without naming names, Mosley then fired a broadside at one particular F1 team principal and colleague.

Mosley said: "Some of the discussions are really tedious. There's one F1 team principal, let's just say that perhaps he's not the sharpest knife in the box, and he brings with him a manager person to give him a bit of weight. The manager person is a detail man but the problem is that it's always the wrong detail. So you have these interminable discussions about irrelevant minutiae when you are trying to get on with something serious.

"At a certain point that begins to pall, particularly if you are really doing it because it interests you and is not a paid job. This repeats itself to some extent with rallying, although it's not as bad, and you get to the stage where you've really had enough. Above all, you shouldn't stay in the job if it doesn't really fascinate you."

Mosley added that his decision to stand down is also timely because he has achieved nearly everything he set out to.

"For years," he said, "people have been trying to unite the FIA and the AIT (a world motoring body once seen as an FIA rival), and that has been achieved. We have also become significant players in Brussels, where we have a forum that is a very significant political body to do with every day road cars.

"We have a foundation, with an endowment of over $300 million thanks to Bernie and the F1 money. That gets spent half on motor sport safety and half on road safety generally. It has been a very satisfying thing, seeing that happen.

"On road safety, there has been a huge effect and the FIA has become a world organisation. In addition to that, with the support of FIA I was able to start and preside over the Euro NCAP organisation for eight years. I stepped down from that a few weeks ago because I thought the time had come for someone else to have it.

"I've also been able to preside for three years over Intelligent Transport Systems Europe, which brings together all the governments in an attempt to use electronics to improve mobility and safety on the roads. All of these things have been very satisfying. You really have a sense that things have moved on and that you've achieved something.

"But now, all that is really left, if I was going to step down in 2005, which would be the natural thing to do, is another year of fairly routine, mundane things. I've got one final thing I have to do, and that is push through these changes to F1. That process will be put in motion next Tuesday and once set in motion it will all follow automatically. It will all just happen. For all practical purposes it's done, so I feel that my task is done. I think the time has come.

"I've had people saying to me, don't go, stay on, for which I'm grateful, but I think it's exactly at that moment that you should go. When they start saying that maybe it's about time the old boy went, then it's already too late. It's the moment and I've seized it."

Inevitably, the timing of Mosley's departure, amid a particularly turbulent time for F1 politically, has prompted questions over whether he might be swayed or whether his decision is final.

"I don't change my mind every few minutes," he said with a smile, "I'm not an F1 team principal..."