Max Mosley is the ruler of his domain and not even an attempted palace coup by Formula One team owners will be enough to unseat the president of the FIA from his position of absolute control over one of the most powerful governing bodies in world sport.

Mosley is neither employed by the FIA, which means that he cannot be sacked for the alleged sexual shenanigans revealed by a Sunday tabloid newspaper, nor is he answerable only to the 11 teams that make up Formula One. Mosley’s fate, for now, is in his hands and close friends believe that the scandal will soon be yesterday’s news and he will carry on in his job, safe in the knowledge that if key figures in Formula One want to strike now, while he is at his weakest, they will face arduous months of lobbying.

He has a strong ally in Bernie Ecclestone, but even the billionaire Formula One impresario concedes that Mosley cuts an embarrassing figure at present and has advised his friend to stay away from this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix.

Formula One, though, is just a part – albeit the most high-profile part – of the FIA’s activities. Set up in 1904, the organisation was originally dedicated to the interests of road users and it carries out a huge amount of work on road safety and the environment, topics close to Mosley’s heart. It is governed by a senate representing 222 motoring organisations in 130 countries, headed by Mosley as FIA president, and only they could trigger an election that would force Mosley out of the unpaid post he has held for 15 years.

Mosley was a controversial figure even before he walked through the doors of the FIA’s opulent headquarters in Paris for the first time. He had been a leading light in the Formula One Constructors’ Association, a group of team owners who confronted the autocratic Jean-Marie Balestre, the president of the FIA at the time but also of Fisa, the governing body for motor racing. Mosley overwhelmingly won an election to head Fisa and then defeated Balestre again to take over the FIA. He quickly merged the bodies and he has authority over more than two dozen motor racing championships, as well as member motoring organisations, such as the RAC and AA in Britain.

Often labelled arrogant and authoritarian, Mosley has worked hand in glove with Ecclestone; while Ecclestone controlled the finances, Mosley controlled the rules and regulations. He infuriated Formula One’s leading team owners but they admired his ability always to be one step ahead. The criticism came to a head last year because many believed that his pursuit of McLaren Mercedes in the Spygate affair was vindictive. But Mosley was proved right when the team admitted their guilt.

Mosley has often said that he is tired of fighting battles in Formula One and this may be an unexpected opportunity to hand over the reins to concentrate on the road-safety campaigns that have been the FIA’s unsung success story. Every new car, for example, has to pass the European New Car Assessment Programme, a crash test devised for Mosley as a direct result of knowledge derived from Formula One and partially financed by income from the sport.

Jean Todt has just retired from leading Ferrari and has been touted by Mosley as a future FIA president. But there are other potential candidates, such as Richard Parry-Jones, the former senior executive at Ford and the man who catapulted Jaguar into Formula One. Although that was a flop, Parry-Jones impressed many with his common sense and he would be seen as impartial, unlike Todt with his past connections to Formula One’s top team, and a man who could provide a respite from the constant warfare that has disrupted Formula One during Mosley’s reign.