Mosley regrets not keeping carmakers in F1

Max Mosley

(GMM) Max Mosley thinks personal meetings with the bosses of the carmakers BMW and Toyota could have kept them in formula one.

The former FIA president has written a series of retrospectives in the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph, and in the latest he admits that not sitting down with CEOs Norbert Reithofer (BMW) and Akio Toyoda was a "mistake".

"There was perhaps one major error on my part," he wrote, recalling the period of turmoil last year when he was pushing for budget caps to be introduced amid fierce opposition from team principals.

Mosley admits he "should have taken the trouble to visit each of the car company CEOs individually and explain exactly what we were doing and why".

"Had I done this I think BMW would still be with us and, just possibly, Toyota," said the 69-year-old Briton, who has been succeeded by Jean Todt.

"It would have been easy to demonstrate that with the cost cap, they could have had the same for far less. But this was never a message their team principals were going to give them," added Mosley.