Mosley Blames Himself for Manufacturers' Exodus in F1

Apart from issuing an unprecedented attack over former Formula One manager F1 Flavio Briatore, Max Mosley also wrote about some of his regrets during the long-time mandate at the helm of the International Automobile Federation (FIA). Writing a series of retrospectives for British newspaper the Daily Telegraph, Mosley admitted that he was wrong not to become personally involved in terms of FIA's cost-cutting policy.

And it's not like he hasn't done enough to implement the new rules, only the fact that he failed to lobby for it before the CEOs of the car makers involved in Formula One cost the championship two manufacturers over the course of only one season. Toyota and BMW withdrew from the series at the end of 2009, leaving the Great Circle with only 3 car makers: Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault (who are on the verge of quitting the series themselves).

What Mosley is blaming himself for is the fact that, during the political turmoil between the FIA and the Formula One Teams Association, he didn't take the time to visit both CEOs Norbert Reithofer (BMW) and Akio Toyoda (Toyota) to explain to them FIA's plan and possible talk them into agreeing with him.

“There was perhaps one major error on my part. (...) I should have taken the trouble to visit each of the car company CEOs individually and explain exactly what we were doing and why. Had I done this I think BMW would still be with us and, just possibly, Toyota,” said the 69-year old Briton.

“It would have been easy to demonstrate that with the cost cap, they could have had the same for far less. But this was never a message their team principals were going to give them,” added Mosley, hinting that the fault for losing BMW and Toyota rests in the team principals', rather the governing body of Formula One.