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Former FIA president Max Mosley committed suicide after being diagnosed with terminal cancer and told he had a “very limited life expectancy.”
The coroner concluded that, upon learning of his diagnoses, the 81-year-old shot himself in May 2021.
The night before his death, it’s understood Mosley had dinner with his wife, from whom he lived separately, before returning home.
He was discovered the following morning after a note left on his door, found by his personal assistant, advised ‘do not enter’ and ‘call the police’.
A suicide letter was found in the room with Mosley, which stated ‘I had no choice’.
Senior Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox was “entirely satisfied Mr Mosley would not have undertaken this action but for the distressing and debilitating terminal lymphoma.”
Mosley was an instrumental figure in Formula 1 following the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna at the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix.
Mosley’s involvement in motorsport started as a competitor before becoming a constructor and ultimately an administrator.
He was a starter in the Formula 2 race in which two-time world champion Jim Clark was killed at Hockenheim in 1968.
Together with Robin Herb, Alan Rees, and Graham Coaker, Mosley was a founding partner of March Engineering, managing legal and commercial for the operation.
That saw him become involved with the Formula One Constructors’ Association, where he met Ecclestone and laid the foundation for a partnership that would prove instrumental to the sport in the coming decades.
He was FIA president from 1993 to 2009, driving through significant change for the betterment of the sport, especially with regards to driver safety.
Later, he turned his attention to media and privacy reform, and financially supported victims in the News of the World phone hacking scandal.
