Max Mosley - Formula One Constructors Association

Formula One Constructors Association

From 1969, Mosley was invited to represent March at the Grand Prix Constructors' Association (GPCA), which negotiated joint deals on behalf of its member teams. Although the new March organisation was not popular with the established teams, Mosley has said that "when they went along to meetings to discuss things such as prize money, they felt they ought to take me along because I was a lawyer". He was unimpressed with the standard of negotiations: "our side all went in a group because no-one trusted anyone else and all were afraid that someone would break ranks and make a private deal." In 1971, British businessman Bernie Ecclestone bought the Brabham team, and Mosley recalls that:

Within about 20 minutes of turning up at the meeting, it was apparent that here was someone who knew how many beans made five and after about half an hour he moved round the table to sit next to me, and from then on he and I started operating as a team. Within a very short time, the two of us were doing everything for the GPCA, instead of everyone moving around in a block, and from that developed FOCA.

The Formula One Constructors Association (FOCA) was created in 1974 by Ecclestone, Colin Chapman, Teddy Mayer, Mosley, Ken Tyrrell and Frank Williams. FOCA would represent the commercial interests of the teams at meetings with the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA), motorsport's world governing body. After leaving March at the end of 1977, Mosley officially became legal advisor to FOCA, which was led by Ecclestone. In his biography of Ecclestone, Terry Lovell suggests that he appointed Mosley to this role not only because of his legal ability, but also because he "saw in Mosley the necessary diplomatic and political skills that made him perfectly suited to the establishment of the FIA". The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) was FISA's parent body, representing car users worldwide. In the same year, Mosley was nominated for a role at the FIA Bureau Internationale de Constructeurs d'Automobile. His nomination was blocked by French, Italian and German manufacturers.

In the early 1980s, Mosley represented FOCA in the "FISA-FOCA War", a conflict between FOCA, representing the mainly UK-based independent teams, and FISA, which was supported by the "grandee" constructors owned by road car manufacturers (primarily Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Renault). In 1981, FOCA announced its own World Federation of Motor Sport and ran the non-championship 1981 South African Grand Prix. The staging of this event, with worldwide television coverage, helped persuade Jean-Marie Balestre, the FISA president, that FISA would have to negotiate a settlement with FOCA. As Mosley has since commented: "We were absolutely skint. If Balestre could have held the manufacturer's support for a little bit longer, the constructors would have been on their knees. The outcome would then have been very different." Mosley helped draw up the Concorde Agreement, a document which resolved the dispute by essentially giving FISA control of the rules and FOCA control of promotion and television rights. The most recent version of the Concorde Agreement expired on 31 December 2007, and a new one was being discussed, as of 2008. In 1982, the year after the first Concorde Agreement was signed, Mosley left his role at FOCA, and Formula One, to work for the Conservative Party.