Jean-Marie Balestre: FIA president dubbed the 'most important man in motorsport'

Befitting a man who cut such a controversial figure in motorsport, Jean-Marie Balestre, former president of the FIA (the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile), the sport's world governing body, was a colourful character with equally colourful antecedents.

Having enlisted during the Second World War in the French Army as a volunteer at 19, he would later claim that he had joined the French resistance and worked undercover while posing as a member of the French Waffen SS. This created much debate when he returned to civilian life after the war. According to his own account, he was arrested by the Gestapo and sentenced to death by the German Military Tribunal, but this was commuted instead to deportation to a concentration camp in Germany on 16 August 1944. In the Eighties, when a book was published which showed photographs of him dressed as a Nazi, Balestre sued, successfully. However, he was awarded derisory damages of one franc.

The matter was always a very touchy subject, even though he could boast of appropriate resistance decorations and appointment as a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur.

Balestre began his career as a sub-editor at Sport et Santé and l'Auto Journal, the car magazine that he established with his friend Robert Hersant, a known German collaborator. But his abiding interest in politics was reflected by his secretaryship of the International League Against Racism.

He built a vast publishing empire, then in 1952 founded the Federation Française du Sport Automobile (FFSA). In 1959 he laid claim to founding the French national karting authority, which would soon be followed by Europe's International Karting Commission (the CIK), in which he appointed himself founder and honorary president. He trumpeted in 1991: "I founded Karting. All our great drivers of today made their début in Karting. What greater love for amateurism!"

He became secretary-general of the FFSA in 1968 and ascended to its presidency in 1973, but his greatest coup was to found the Fédération Internationale du Sport Automobile (FISA) in 1978, an independent sporting branch within the FIA. Naturally, he was its first president.

He played his role to the full, revelling in his influence. But within two years he became embroiled in a bitter battle with Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley of the Formula One Constructors' Association (FOCA). They quickly realised that his agenda centred upon wresting control from them, and threatened to run an independent Formula One championship. Their campaign was about to collapse when they were able to bluff Balestre into a truce in February 1981. Both sides realised that they needed each other, and face-saving measures abounded.

Balestre succeeded in maintaining his intended ban on aerodynamic skirts; Ecclestone, ever the shrewd and far-sighted businessman, retained control over the lucrative television rights. When, in 1985, Balestre subsequently became the president of the FIA as well, he crowed: "I am now more important than Kennedy. I am the world's only triple president."

Controversy dogged him. In 1989 he crossed the track at the start of the British Grand Prix and narrowly avoided being run down by Nicola Larini's Osella. Later he disqualified Ayrton Senna from a fabulous victory in the 1989 Japanese Grand Prix after the Brazilian and his McLaren team-mate Alain Prost had collided. Senna angrily claimed that Balestre was deliberately favouring his fellow countryman, and was forced to make an apology of sorts before Balestre granted him a superlicence for 1990.

Serious questions were asked about the president's dictatorial handling of headline issues, especially when he took no action at the end of 1990 after Senna, in one of the most outrageous act of piracy in the history of the world championship, rammed Prost off the road at Suzuka to win that year's title.

Nevertheless, Balestre continued to rule the FISA with an iron fist until Mosley challenged him successfully at the end of 1991 after running a covert campaign to win votes from smaller clubs all over the world rather than relying purely on the support of the big European bodies. In the big showdown, Balestre was defeated by 43 votes to 29.

He was 70 years old and had already suffered a heart attack in December 1986, and his loss marked the beginning of the end for him as a key player on the international motorsport stage, although he remained FIA president until 1993.

His ego manifested itself in his campaign speech in 1991 when, attacking Mosley, he said:

I owe my fortune neither to inheritance nor to marriage. I am a self-made man and I ended the essential part of my professional careers as the head of one of the most important press groups in Europe, with 12,000 employees including 2,000 journalists. Believe me, examining the accounts of 42 different companies, handling difficult conflicts with workers or journalists' unions, was a domain infinitely more complex and demanding. In comparison with the triple presidency of the FIA, the FISA and the FFSA, it seems like a croquet match.

I do not know if I am indispensable, but I have just read in the English press that I am "the most important man in world motorsport". The champions of sailing have stated that they would like to have a president like J-M. Balestre at the head of their federation. To them I am the model of a "strong" man.

Frequently Balestre's public behaviour bordered on buffoonery. But when the mood was upon him he could be charming and polite. His undoubted grandiloquence was a powerful weapon that he used to overcome rivals and enemies, and his powers of advocacy and penchant for the dramatic made him a compelling speaker. And for all his Gallic bombast and vain posturing, he was instrumental in improving safety and pushed through many advances. His greatest legacy to the sport he loved was the series of mandatory F1 crash tests, the first of which was introduced in 1985.

"He tried very hard on safety," Mosley willingly acknowledged. "He was altruistic. I think he really minded when people got hurt, and he did a tremendous amount."

David Tremayne

Jean-Marie Balestre, businessman and sports administrator: born St-Rémy-de-Provence, France 9 April 1921; president, FFSA 1973-96; president, FISA 1978-91; president, FIA 1985-93; married; died Paris 27 March 2008.

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