Mosley no stranger to controversy

"Of course people are entitled to a private life but what they do in their private lives can have a bearing on their public positions, their judgement, their morality and their suitability for important high profile positions," said Nick Keller, chairman of the British Sport Industry Group.

"Max Mosley has let himself and his sport down and should accept responsibility for that. He is without doubt not suitable to continue within our industry and I call for his immediate resignation."

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Mosley, who has run the governing body since 1993 and receives no salary for what is an elected position, has refused to quit but it remains to be seen how long he can hold out.

The urbane Briton has been a key player in Formula One since the 1970s, when he first formed what was to become an unlikely double-act with commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone.

The two are Formula One’s Odd Couple, chalk-and-cheese. The diminutive Ecclestone is a former motorcycle dealer whose father was a trawler captain.

The tall and patrician Mosley is the son of Oswald, founder of the pre-war British Union of Fascists, and famed society beauty Diana Mitford. Educated in France and Germany, he is fluent in both languages.

Together they have controlled the two sides of the sport, the billionaire Ecclestone taking care of business while Mosley holds sway over the rules and regulations.

After competing in the same Formula Two race at Hockenheim in which Jim Clark was killed, Mosley retired from driving in 1969 and became a co-founder of the March team.

When Ecclestone bought Brabham in 1971, the two became allies and created the Formula One Constructors’ Association that later took on the governing body for control of the sport.

A barrister, Mosley provided the legal brains behind the confidential Concorde Agreement that set in stone the relationship between Ecclestone, the FIA and the teams and in 1991 ousted the late Frenchman Jean-Marie Balestre as president of FISA, the motorsport division of the FIA.

In 1993, he was elected FIA president and his reign has been punctuated by controversy, despite major achievements in the realm of safety since the death of triple champion Ayrton Senna at Imola in 1994.

He has overcome opposition to push cost savings and a more environmentally-friendly image for the sport while also indulging in regular verbal sparring with old foes.

In 2004, when he announced that he intended to step down (a decision he soon retracted), Mosley derided dithering Formula One team bosses. In a comment generally taken to refer to McLaren’s Ron Dennis, he labelled one of them as "not the sharpest knife in the box".

Triple world champion Jackie Stewart came in for similar abuse when Mosley told reporters, in comments that were widely reported, that the Scot was "a certified half-wit."

Mosley was first introduced to motor racing in 1961 when his wife was given tickets to the British Grand Prix at Silverstone while he was still a student at Oxford.

There was an immediate attraction to a world where he could escape his father’s notoriety, even if the two were always close.

A favourite Mosley anecdote is the story of how, at one of the first races he entered as a budding amateur, he overheard his name being discussed after a practice session.

"I heard somebody say, ’Mosley, Max Mosley, he must be some relation of Alf Mosley, the coachbuilder,’" he recalled in an interview some years ago.

"I thought to myself: ’I’ve found a world where they don’t know about Oswald Mosley.’ And it has always been a bit like that in motor racing: nobody gives a damn."

That, as this week has shown, is no longer the case.

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Clare Lovell)