Jean Todt To Replace Max Mosley ?

It is widely rumoured in the F1 paddock that former Ferrari frontman Jean Todt is being groomed to replace Max Mosley.

A vote of confidence in the FIA Senate in Paris on 3 June will determine whether Mosley must resign over the recent sex scandal, or be allowed to remain in his role until the expiry of his fourth term in October 2009, something he has repeatedly insisted he firmly intends to do.
It would also explain Williams unwillingness to sign a statement calling for Mosley’s resignation in Barcelona last weekend. All of the eleven teams met in the Toyota motorhome in the Circuit de Catalunya’s paddock on the orders of F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone.
Red Bull’s refusal to put its name to the agreement was perhaps no great surprise, with owner Dietrich Mateschitz being a close friend of Mosley’s, the similar resistance of Williams, said to have infuriated Ecclestone, is a little harder to understand. It has been suggested, however, that neither Sir Frank Williams nor Patrick Head would sign the statement as both are sternly opposed to Todt becoming the Englishman’s successor.

Mosley and Todt are expected to attend the Monaco Grand Prix next month. It will be Mosley’s first public appearance in F1 since the News of the World’s front page news on his private life just over four weeks ago.
Mosley has also engaged the services of an expert investigative company in an effort to uncover the source of the surveillance that led to what the News of the World called his ‘sick Nazi orgy with 5 hookers’ coming to the tabloid newspaper’s attention. In July he is set to take on the News of the World in the courts, seeking ‘unlimited damages’ for breach of privacy and he has always vigorously denied any ‘Nazi connotations’ to the matter.
It is believed the covert investigation into his private life, however, was actually conducted at significant expense over a long period of time by a third party, with German publication Auto Motor und Sport suggesting the aforementioned source could even emanate from within the grand prix paddock. Mosley is also said to have commissioned the British private detective outfit Quest to carry out surveillance on the prostitute who blew the whistle on his activities.

Read Full Post »