Stewart: People Are Frightened to Vote for Vatanen

Only hours to the ballot that's going to give us the name of the new president of the International Automobile Federation (FIA), triple Formula One champion Jackie Stewart made one more attempt to prevent Jean Todt from winning the elections. Convinced that the Frenchman would only continue Max Mosley's tyrannic regime at the helm of the FIA, Stewart urged the member clubs to hit those two hard on Friday.

Approximately 250 member clubs will get to vote on Friday, with the upper hand currently held by Jean Todt, according to recent reports. However, Stewart believes this state of events is only a reflection of Mosley's policy in recent weeks, during which the 69-year old Brit continuously threatened some of the clubs into switching their vote to Todt.

Todt has been publicly backed by both Mosley and Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone since announcing his candidature for the FIA seat, while Vatanen had to face some strong opposition – he was kicked out of a FIA meeting, did not get a FIA pass to visit the grid in the Italian Grand Prix – and was constantly pushed to the limit by the two aforementioned figures.

“Max is saying that for anyone who votes against Jean Todt there will be repercussions. The vote is supposedly a secret ballot, but people are still somewhat frightened of voting against the will of Max and Bernie. I feel that for some time now motor sport has been ruled by fear and threat, and that categorically has to change,” said Stewart in an interview with The Independent.

“Bernie and Max have created such a power base for themselves, they have such influence, whether financial or regulatory, that it is simply not healthy for the long-term stability of the sport,” added the Scottish driver, who once again referred to the discrepancy in handing penalties by the FIA in recent years.

For similar cases of sporting misconduct, the FIA issued totally different fines or penalties – spy-gate as compared to the crash-gate being only one of those examples – and Stewart believes this is only the result of Max Mosley's favoritism inside the Formula One championship. If you're with him, you'll likely get away with practically anything you do. If you're against him... well, ask Ron Dennis about that.

“How could they justify a $100m fine (imposed on McLaren) for something not actually proven, and certainly not in a civil court of law? That's the largest fine in the history of sport. Never in the NFL, in baseball, in the Premier League, in golf or tennis, has there been a $100m fine. Yet Renault, on the other hand, were told they were guilty of the Crashgate scandal, for what is claimed to be the largest scandal ever in sport, never mind motor racing, and received no financial penalty at all?” rhetorically asked Stewart.