I won't bother quotingmanchild wrote:He warns that Hamilton's success will be bad for F1 and yet he has no problem in fact that Bahrain authorities and GP organizers prohibit F1 team member who are citizens of Israel to enter their land and participate in GP. That is not a made up story but a fact. There was a team or two whose members couldn't attend Bahrain GP. As a president of FIA he should have cancel Bahrain GP unless they allow every team member regardless on race, religion or nationality to participate in it. He didn't even raised his voice against that.
Mosley's exact words in that BBC HardTalk interview, you can look it up yourself. The way I understood it was that after Schumacher had proven himself to be very successful and talented, there was a steady stream of people coming to Mosley (and various other FIA officials) with suggestions that were rather obviously designed to slow Schumacher down, or give other competitors a better chance. I guess the change in the points system can be viewed as one such development that actually got accepted.
This kind of thing obviously being a negative development (compared to others just rising up to the challenge), Mosley then went on to say that chances are, if Hamilton keeps up his level of performance, that he will see that bit of history repeating. In effect, in my opinion he stopped just short of directly comparing Hamilton with Schumacher in very favourable terms, as far as talent and ability is concerned. Certainly it didn't come over as Mosley thinking that Hamilton is unworthy of being, or winning, in F1. Yes, there were ambiguities in his statement; it will be very hard to put the words in any racial context, because it didn't come into play much. I believe the interviewer referred to something like that (a slightly lame Tiger Woods comparison?) at some point, but can't remember anything sinificant or noteworthy coming out of it.
Mosley has a past, yes. I believe he was something like 19 - 21 years old at the time of the last of the events you keep bringing up. Would I like Mosley to come out with a statement that he strongly supports a multicultural and a multiracial F1? Yes, unequivocally yes. Perhaps we could ask him to head an FIA program against racism, religious bias and chauvinism. It'd possibly mean more, coming from a person with his family history than coming from a person such as myself, not having had to have a change of heart or having had to renounce the values of my parents to arrive at such a conclusion. I wonder if Mosley was confronted with his history at the time he was elected as FIA president?
(Btw, as to Jean-Marie Balestre, his (as always, utterly trustworthy
) Wikipedia profile states that unverifiably he had been a French Resistance fighter during WWII. That's a bit at odds with being a Wermacht/SS collaborator, but stranger things happened during the war. A book came out a short while ago, the "Grand Prix Saboteurs", about drivers going about doing secret missions during the war ... the truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. Doesn't even Flavio claim to have been in the Foreign Legion, while others claim he was a ski instructor in the Alps?As to Jean Todt, I'm not familiar with how widespread that surname is in Europe. Jean has some Polish roots, but he can't be directly related to Fritz Todt, though, as he was killed in a plane crash (in '42?) and Jean was born years later, after the war I think. Personally, I'm starting to think that you're just pulling our leg with these suggestions, Manchild, but if you've got the energy, I'm sure we'd all be interested to see you come up with undisputable historical facts. Especially after offering such insinuations, don't you feel you have some responsibility in this matter, especially if you've been wrong?)
As to the Bahrain incident, it was good that you pointed it out. I didn't know it happened and would've liked to have heard from the Bahraini authorities as to what, if any, justifications they had in blocking Israeli citizens from entering their country. The FIA should make these incidents public, as I think it's forbidden for any F1 host country to use the sport as a political platform. (I'm sure you remember the trouble with the Turkish Cypriot leader presenting a trophy at a Turkish GP? An infringement worth $5M, I think, and they risked losing their GP.)
There was actually a rather similar occurrence at this year's USGP. Team BMW Sauber had to replace one of their race engineers (a very senior position) with the head of their test team engineers, because the race engineer couldn't get a visa to enter the country. Why? He's originally Iranian. Surely such bias, and especially protecting F1's and the FIA's interests in justly challenging such dubious practices, is very difficult. But no-one ever said that the job of being the president of the FIA should or could be easy.
I'd like to see Mosley take on such challenges. I'm sure there's quite a lot on his plate as we write, but there's nothing to stop anyone from contacting his office - in any capacity you may have - and very publicly requesting him, or his organisation, to address any wrong you might perceive the FIA should act on. I'm sure they wouldn't want to be seen taking half measures when it comes to human rights and such.
