13/4/1940 - 22/5/2021
Record updated 18-Aug-21
Max Rufus Mosley was a British racing driver, lawyer and president of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile
The second son of Sir Oswald Mosley and Diana Mitford. Sir Oswald Mosley was a British politician principally known as the founder of the British Union of Fascists. He was also the sixth baronet of a title established in 1720. Mosley grew up in Ireland before going to school in France and later at Stein an der Traun in Germany.
In 1958 he went up to Christ Church College, Oxford where he was secretary of the Oxford Union. He graduated with a degree in physics in 1961 and began reading law at Grays Inn in London. He qualified as a solicitor in 1964.
in the early 1960s he took up motor racing, mainly in club events however in 1968 he graduated to Formula 2 with his friend Chris Lambert and together the formed their own team, the London Racing Team. Sadly Lambert was killed in an accident with Clay Regazzoni at Zandvoort in August 1968 and the team ws dispanded with Mosley becoming Piers Courage's team mate with Frank Williams's F2 team.
He quit driving in 1969 to set up March Engineering with Robin Herd, Alan Rees and Graham Coaker. The company became a sucessful racing car manufacturer, though the company never really achieved in Formula 1.
The March works team won only three Grand Prix: Jackie Stweart at the Spanish GP in 1970, Vittorio Brambilla in Austria in 1975 and Ronnie Peterson at Monza in 1976.
Mosley became involved in the activities of FOCA and, at the end of 1977, when March withdrew from F1, Mosley quit March to become the legal advisor to FOCA and a member of the FISA F1 Commission.
He played a leading role in the FISA-FOCA war of 1980-82, which led to the Concorde Agreement. Mosley then took three years away from motorsport until becoming president of the Manufacturers Commission at the FIA in 1986. He was involved in the establishment of Simtek Research in 1989 though when he became president of the FISA in 1991, he sold his interests in the company. In becoming President of FISA he ousted Jean-Marie Balestre by 43 votes to 29. Mosley announced that he would resign after a year so that he could be judged on merit and 12 months later he was re-elected for a four-year term.
He then engineered the merger between the FIA and the FISA and in October 1993 became the FIA President for a four year period. He was re-elected in October 1997 and again in 2001 and 2005.