Jean Todt Running For FIA Presidency

Jean Todt, the former top head of Ferrari has announced that he will run for the presidency of the FIA when the election is held later this year. Max Mosley has stated that he will step down from his post as president in October, having held the position since 1993. Mosley is involved in several other projects including charity work with the SKIDZ project, which teaches underprivileged kids in the U.K valuable skills to do with the world of motorsport, and has announced that he will endorse Todt's campaign for the presidency.

The sixty-three year old Frenchman was a manager of Peugeot Talbot Sport until 1993, when a position opened with the Ferrari Formula 1 Team. In 2006, he became Scuderia Ferrari's CEO and held onto that position until March 18^th, 2008, when he resigned and took on the role of Special Appointment within the racing division of the company. That ended just over a month ago when he announced his intention to run for president of the Federation International de Automobile, Formula One Racing's governing body.

Mosley said, in a letter to the FIA member clubs, that Todt would be the ideal person to further the work of the past fifteen or so years, and that he was reliable in all of the different areas that the FIA was active. Todt has been involved with the sport since 1966, and was able to take the Ferrari team to five championships in a row in 2000,2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. Todt has chosen Brian Gibbons from New Zealand and Graham Stoker from the UK as his running mates as well as Nick Craw, from the U.S., as president of the senate of the FIA. Ari Vatanen, the previous world rally champion announced at the German Grand Prix last week that he also would be seeking the FIA Presidency.