Max Mosley: Formula One and Beyond

Sports book of the month price: Hardcover £17.00 (saving £8 on rrp).

If you see Max Mosley as a cold, aloof character, it’s a fair bet you recall him standing outside the High Court, caught in the harsh glare of the media spotlight.

“F1 Boss Has Sick Nazi Orgy with 5 Hookers” belched the News of the World’s front page in March 2008.

That’s not the sort of elephant to ever be hidden in any room and, rather than hide, Mosley is happy to give chapter and verse to his war with Rupert Murdoch’s red top tabloid.

Even in victory, however, he didn’t have much to smile about, having had his private life pored over.

“My solicitors’ bill was £510,000, the proportion the News of the World had to pay was £420,000, leaving me £30,000 out of pocket despite £60,000 damages,” he reveals.

Before his reputation was trashed, Mosley bestrode Formula One as president of FIA.

Motor racing enthusiasts will delight in his thorough examination of the sport, the in-fighting, back-stabbing but more importantly how he worked to make F1 safer following the deaths of Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger at the San Marino Grand Prix in 1994.

Those of a more prurient nature will immediately be drawn to the scandal in this well-crafted autobiography. He knew he had a strong case because of his previous career in the legal profession.

"What took place was merely lawful consensual sexual activity between adults,” Mosley insists. ”It might be unconventional but it was entirely legal. Their Nazi invention was intended to give their story a supposed public interest defence."

It's difficult not to warm to Mosley when he elicits a smile with one tale of moral rectitude.

Suspicions he wasn’t cut out to be a fat cat in Gray’s Inn were confirmed when he refused to "produce page upon page of important-sounding waffle” and his clerk – pretending to weigh a few sheets of undiluted opinion – protested: "I can’t charge 200 guineas for this, Mr Mosley.”

We’ve teamed up with www.sportsbookofthemonth.com and have a copy of Max Mosley: Formula One and Beyond to give away.

To win this prize, visit www.sportsbookofthemonth.com and answer the following question: How many times has Lewis Hamilton won the British Grand Prix?

Basingstoke Gazette: