Thanks to Max Mosley, you are less likely to die from crashing your Perodua

Max Mosley, former Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) and Euro NCAP president, passed away from cancer earlier this week. He was aged 81.

Now, politics and sports go as well as politics at a family gathering. Bringing it up is a good way to ruin a good time. However, Mosley was more than your average weasel in a suit.

The broader motoring community remembers Mosley as one of the leading figureheads who turned Formula One into the global spectacle that it is today. But his legacy isn't just in racing. Though it was instrumental in shaping him.

Born into politics, shaped by racing

Son of a controversial British politician and a trained lawyer, Mosley indulged in his love for motorsports early on. He became a fairly successful racing driver, made his way into Formula Two, and later co-founded a promising Formula One team.

Due to his involvement in Formula One, he crossed paths with team owner Bernie Ecclestone, who recognised his legal know-how and made him the legal advisor to the Formula One Constructors' Association (FOCA). 

This landed Mosley in the hot seat during the FISA-FOCA war, where his organisation was locked in a power struggle with the then governing body of motorsports, FISA. A dispute that saw whole races being cancelled and teams walking out and threatening to leave the sport to form their own series. 

Mosley managed to turn things around with the 1981 Concorde Agreement, which gave the teams a larger share of the race series' earnings and formalised its structure, turning Formula One from a chaotic mess into the well-oiled and organised series that we know and love today. 

Mosley's rise to power

Mosley's deft handling of the FISA-FOCA war cemented his rise to becoming the president of FISA in 1991. Two years later, he dissolved the organisation and transferred all motorsports activities to the FIA, where he served as its president till 2009. 

Though he would see through many changes and scandals throughout his years at the FIA, it was the death of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at the 1994 Imola Grand Prix, that would set him on a path that would define his legacy.

Having experienced the death of fellow racers during his Formula Two career, Mosley knew something had to be done about it. It simply didn't accept the rationale of the time "‘if you want to do it, take the risk".

From his position, Mosley brought sweeping reforms towards improving the safety of motorsports by introducing better crash safety regulations. And he would also carry his crusade into the outside world.

Saving the world

In the 1990s, Mosley became an instrumental figurehead in the formation of the Euro NCAP. Not only did he throw his support behind the project, but he also funded the Euro NCAP’s early crash tests using money from the FIA’s motorsports side.

Understandably, many within motorsports circles questioned his decision to fund road car safety instead of helping young go-kart drivers. Incredibly, Mosley said he couldn’t convince his critics with a moral argument.

Instead, he would use a political one by claiming that they were "saving thousands of lives on the road, as a result of motorsports”. He reasoned that this initiative will give the organisation the moral high ground that would help them absolve themselves from future motorsports disasters like another “1955 Le Mans crash”.

This argument apparently worked!

Changing the way we see safety

It might sound odd to us today, but like safe sex, car safety wasn’t that big of a deal up until the late-1990s. According to Mosley, he found that the European motor industry was “absolutely against” the idea of forming an independent crash testing body.

Not only was the idea that “safety doesn’t sell” common amongst car makers of the era, but many also feared that it would needlessly increase costs.

Aside from Volvo, who made safety part of its identity from early on, safety features were more of a luxury amongst European carmakers or a necessity for cars destined for the United States.

As a result of that, road car safety development was particularly slow compared to everything else, prior to the late-1990s. Carmakers weren’t that motivated to improve on something that they wouldn’t think would sell.

Also Read: Volvo officially caps top speed at 180 km/h, is it fast enough for you?

Amidst all the opposition from Europe’s carmakers, Mosley knew he only needed to get the support of one industry figure to “break the dam”. Eventually, he would find an ally with Louis Schweitzer, head of Renault, who would give the FIA president the crucial breakthrough he needed.

“Schweitzer decided to take the risk, get behind NCAP’s new crash tests - and Renault became the very first company to get a Five Star rating, for occupant protection for its Laguna, in 2001. It was remarkable,” says Mosley.

According to Mosley, after the results were published, the Laguna saw a rise in sales within weeks. Not only that, but the rating bolstered Renault’s reputation as a leader in safety, which shook the European motor industry.

“Mercedes took the attitude that they knew what they were doing and did not need us to help. But we crash-tested their then C-class and it was awarded only two stars. That got them going,” Mosley added.

On top of his responsibilities at FIA, Mosley would serve as Euro NCAP’s president from 1997 till 2004. And even after his retirement, he would continue his quest for improving road safety as the Chairman of the Global NCAP programme for emerging markets.  

Thanks to his efforts and influence, Euro NCAP reshaped the European car industry, and by extension, every car maker around the world that wants to be taken seriously in Europe. The organisation itself is described by the European Commission as the most cost-effective road safety initiative of the last 20 years.

It is also hard to overstate what he set in motion for car safety here in Malaysia and many other developing nations, as organisations like the ASEAN NCAP and C-NCAP base their tests on the Euro NCAP crash testing procedures.

His work is the reason why you can walk into a Perodua showroom today, buy the cheapest Myvi and still be safer off than being in 1990s Proton Wira. And we have Mosley to thank for getting the ball rolling and making the world a better place.