Long-time automotive world association boss Max Mosley, one of the fathers of modern Formula 1, is dead. The Briton died at the age of 81, as several British media reported on Monday.
Mosley, together with the former chief marketer Bernie Ecclestone, shaped Formula 1 for many years and enormously improved the safety in the racing series as the top rulers.
From 1993 to 2009, Mosley led the International Automobile Federation, Fia, after giving up a career as a motor sports attorney.
The physicist and lawyer was always an argumentative figure.
As the son of Sir Oswald Mosley, the founder of the British Fascist Party, he had decided against a political career.
Instead, he became Ecclestone's most important advisor and later, as an influential motorsport boss, his partner in transforming Formula 1 into a global billion-dollar business.
“Could I have done all of this without Max?
Probably not, ”Ecclestone once said of Mosley.
He once said, looking back on his work: "In the end, something important came out of it."
Mosley was a racing driver himself and made it into Formula 2. When he realized that he lacked the talent for the premier class, he founded the March team.
He later secured Ecclestone's promotion to head of the racing series and participated in many of his compatriot's deals.
In 1993 he moved to the head of the restructured Fia.
A year later, after the accidental death of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger in Imola, he pushed against much resistance to expand the safety measures in Formula 1. That there were no more deaths among Formula 1 drivers until 2014, when Jules Bianchi had a tragic accident in Suzuka was largely due to Mosley's work.
Mosley's reputation was damaged by a sex affair. In 2008 the British newspaper "News of the World" published illegally recorded pictures of a sex party with the Fia boss. In a legal battle, Mosley brought the tabloid to its knees and then continued his struggle for the right to privacy on an international level. It was only in 2015 that Mosley settled his legal dispute with the search engine operator Google, which he wanted to force to no longer display the sex video and images from it.