Max Mosley explains...

On top of the recent doubt whether the FIA boss would stay in charge, F1's regulation is in doubt with new speed cutting measures being proposed. At first Max was retiring, then he was likely to stay, and now it seems he will be there for several years more. F1 rules on the other hand get teams annoyed... Some explaining had to be done.

I wanted to have a quick press conference here for two purposes. One is because at the last one at Magny-Cours, I told you all that I was going to resign in October and that there was no going back on this decision and then two weeks later I went back on the decision. I thought I owed an explanation for that. Secondly, I thought you might find it useful if I brought you up to date where, at least from the FIA point of view, we are on the Formula One regulations for 2005 and 2006, because there seems to be a certain amount of misunderstanding.

As far as ‘the resignation that never was’ is concerned, I was completely determined to go. I really did feel that I’d had enough – exactly as I explained in Magny-Cours – but fairly soon after that – in fact by the time of the British Grand Prix a week later – there was pressure from all sides of the FIA to stay, not perhaps so much because they all long for me to stay – that’s not for me to say – but because it had become clear that there was no real succession. There was a great deal of backwards and forwards about who might take over and how it might be taken over and everyone started to say, from all different corners of the FIA, you really must stay, you can go in 2005 if you want to, but you must stay, and if you’re going to go, before you go, there should be a structure in place because it is quite obvious that no one person can do the entire job.

And that was really my complaint, that it was just too much work. You get into the office at nine o’ clock in the morning, you can’t really leave until six or seven in the evening and one feels at a certain point you don’t want to spend all your time working at that pressure. If, on the other hand you don’t work at that pressure, so many things get left undone that it’s really disagreeable to be in that situation. So I think what will happen is there will be a new structure, then we will have that structure in place by 2005. Whether I stand again for the presidency in 2005, whether I then retire, or whether I stand for some other position in the restructured FIA is an open question which will obviously get decided in due course and I will listen to what people have to say within the organization.

But the only thing I should say, and I’m sorry this is all quite personal in a way, is that I was very pleasantly surprised by the number of people and the variety of people who really did insist on me staying, and I hope it was because of me (rather than because they hadn’t got anybody who they really wanted to replace me with) but they did and therefore it was quite clearly my duty to stay. So, so much for me and the resignation.

Now for the Formula One regulations: The situation is, as I think everybody knows, that we gave, at the beginning of July, the Technical Working Group notice to produce proposals to slow the cars. Two months went by; there were no proposals, so in accordance with the Concorde Agreement, we have put forward three packages of proposals to slow the cars, and invited the Technical Working Group to choose one of them. These three packages, in each case, have three elements: tyres, aerodynamics and engine. The aerodynamics package is most liberal in package one, slightly less liberal in package two and still less open in package three. I won’t bore you with the details, it’s to do with wings and dimensions and so on – but that’s really what it comes down to. The tyres: it’s the same everywhere, the two sets per weekend that I think everybody knows about, and then the engine: the package one is a very restricted engine, package two is a slightly less restricted engine and package three is a fairly free engine, but in all three cases we’re talking about a 2.4-litre V8. And there’s some misunderstanding about it so let’s be very clear about that, in every case we’re talking about a 2.4-litre V8 but package one very restricted, package two not so restricted, package three quite open, rather like they are currently now, but with a requirement that the major manufacturers, in consideration of being allowed to spend huge sums of money on getting more horsepower, supply the small teams with engines.

Now, at the present time, I think it’s right in saying, but of course it can change at any moment, as far as the aerodynamics are concerned, they are all happy with package two. As far as the tyres are concerned, they are all happy – and when I say all, I believe it to be all ten teams but as we’ve seen so often in the past, that can change very quickly. On the engines, six or seven of them are happy with package two, that is to say, the restrictive but not ultimately restricted engine, and three are not happy. The three that are not happy have said they would prefer to stay with a 3-litre V10 in 2005 and 2006, also a single race engine, and that they would then consider going to a 2.7 V10 in 2007.

So I think that is a reasonable summary of the situation as it is at the present time. Now within the 45 days during which the technical working group have the possibility of choosing one of these three packages it may be that they will choose, that eight of them will agree finally on package two, which is the one that seven would appear to support. Or it may not. If that happens, well, then the matter could go immediately to the World Council for a decision. If that doesn’t happen, at the end of the 45 days the FIA is then free under the Concorde agreement to impose one of the packages itself, which I don’t doubt it will do. So I think that’s really all I can say. I think if I go on further about that I would be just confusing the issue. I think that’s fairly clear, but if it isn’t, I think the moment’s probably come to try and answer questions.