The Mosely Saga Continues

April 3, 2008

The situation is going from bad to worse [if it already was not so] for Max Mosely. Mosely sent a letter to letter to ‘n’ number of people & motor sport bodies, yesterday, whereby he stated his stance on the whole issue. But in last 24 hours, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Toyota & Honda had issued statements where all of them has displayed their disappointments at the ongoing controversy and have asked FIA to look into the matter very seriously. And to make matter worse, the Crown Prince of Bahrain, Sheikh Salman Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa has asked Mosely not to attend the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend. This, undoubtedly, is a big blow for Mosely.

Mercedes-Benz & BMW issued following joint statement:

“This incident concerns Max Mosley both personally and as President of the FIA, the global umbrella organisation for motoring clubs. Its consequences therefore extend far beyond the motor sport industry. We await a response from the relevant FIA bodies.”

Toyota issued the following statement:

“Toyota Motorsport does not approve of any behaviour which could be seen to damage Formula One’s image, in particular any behaviour which could be understood to be racist or anti-Semitic. Senior figures within any sport or business, including motorsport, must adhere to high standards of behaviour. When all the facts are known, it will be for the FIA to decide whether Mr Mosley has met the moral obligations which come with the position of FIA President.”

And Honda issued the following statement:

It is necessary that senior figures in sport and business maintain the highest standards of conduct in order to fulfil their duties with integrity and respect. The Honda Racing F1 Team is extremely disappointed by recent events surrounding Mr Mosley and we are concerned that the reputation of Formula One and all its participants is being damaged. We request that the FIA gives this matter careful consideration and reaches an immediate decision in the best interests of F1 and Motorsport.”

Mosely, not to be left behind had already issued a reply to Mercedes-Benz and BMW:

Given the history of BMW and Mercedes Benz, particularly before and during the Second World War, I fully understand why they would wish to strongly distance themselves from what they rightly describe as the disgraceful content of these publications. Unfortunately, they did not contact me before putting out their statement to ask whether the content was in fact true. No doubt the FIA will respond to them in due course as I am about to respond to the newspaper in question.

And this, I’m sure, is not going to go down so easily. In time to come, more teams will possibly issue statements on the current issue and things are only going to escalate more so and will effect the sport in one way or another. For the good of things, now I believe that Mosely should step down or at least does not stand for re-election. But then he being the Mad Max we know, he’ll surely fight it till the very end whether it brings out any good for him or not.