London (AFP)

Max Mosley, former president of the International Automobile Federation from 1993 to 2009 and controversial figure in world sport, has died at the age of 81, former F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone announced on Monday.

The Briton dominated the world motorsport scene for a quarter of a century, completing three terms at the helm of the mighty FIA.

He had cancer.

"Max was like a member of my family, to me. We were like brothers. In a way, I'm relieved, because he's been in pain for too long," Ecclestone told UK agency PA.

"We are saddened to learn that the former president of the FIA ​​Max Mosley is no more", reacted for their part the organizers of the world championship of the main motor racing event, evoking "a great figure of the transformation of Formula 1 ".

Several sulphurous episodes marked the life of this lawyer, born in London on April 13, 1940, a few weeks before the Battle of Britain.

Max Mosley was the son of Oswald Mosley, founder in the 1930s of the Brisith Union of Fascists party, remarried in Germany in the presence of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Goebbels, interned in 1940 in the front ranks of sympathizers of Nazi Germany in the UK.

After studying physics and then law at Oxford, Max Mosley became a lawyer specializing in patent and trademark matters.

- "Nazi orgy" -

He had developed a taste for motor racing early on, which led him to the Brabham and Lotus Fomule 2 team, until his retirement as a driver in 1969.

He was then co-founder and manager of the March team (1969-1977) before holding various positions at the top of world motorsport, including three terms as president of the FIA.

# photo1

In this post, he lived in particular the death of the Brazilian Ayrton Senna in the race, during the San Marino Grand-Prix in 1994, which led to an overhaul of security policies around the circuits.

Max Mosley handed over the controls of the FIA ​​to Frenchman Jean Todt in 2009, after being at the center of the so-called "Nazi orgy" scandal, after the dissemination of photos and video of a session of sadomasochism where he appeared in the company of five young prostitutes speaking German.

Some were in striped prison clothes, others in uniform, notably that of the Luftwaffe.

In July 2008, he had obtained more than 76,000 euros in damages from the Sunday weekly News of the World, at the origin of this revelation.

The British justice had considered that the scene of sado-masochistic frolics, diffused by the newspaper on its site, did not present of character "Nazi" and that the recording of the video was not justified by the right of the public to information.

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