The main reason why Max Mosley should have resigned as president of the FIA as soon as he was exposed as a sado-masochist and fetishist was that, by remaining in office, he would damage motor sport by its association with his own tarnished image.

Now seven weeks since the revelations of Mosley's prediliction for whipping prostitutes in orgies involving prison-camp role play, Formula One is knee-deep in Mosley's fight to clear his name and his fight to survive in office, despite a deafening chorus from those who believe that he should step down.

This week is a special one in the Formula One calendar, when motor racing's most prestigious world championship turns up at Monte Carlo for a race weekend replete with the glamour and romance that Formula One can still turn on like nothing else. The build-up should be all about Monaco, about the struggles Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen face on the most difficult race track in the world, but all that will take second place to Mosley.

Without any regard for the sport he claims to serve, the self-publicist in Mosley has chosen this most eye-catching of stages to make his return to the paddock for the first time since the scandal broke. He will appear despite official reaction to him in Bahrain, Spain, Israel and Turkey indicating that he is persona non grata and despite the fact that Prince Albert II has made it clear that he does not wish to be seen with the FIA president.

Mosley, we have learnt, neither feels embarrassment nor is capable of acknowledging errors of judgment - his biggest, by far, is his decision not to have resigned - and thus he ploughs on and on. Meanwhile, the damage to Formula One and the off-putting imagery in a sport more image-conscious than any other, and of appeal across all cultures and age ranges, continues.

This weekend, Mosley will have been celebrating a small advance, namely the revelation that one of the five prostitutes who allegedly whipped him in a Chelsea basement is married to an MI5 officer, who was allegedly forced to resign. Although he does not believe that MI5 was involved in a surveillance operation against him - the idea that the British Government wanted Mosley brought down is too ridiculous even for him - he views this as consistent with his belief that he is the victim of a dark conspiracy to destroy his reputation.

That is as maybe, but this is another detail relating to the circumstances surrounding how he was caught out. It does not alter, either, the fact that he has been caught out or that he is widely considered unfit for the office he clings to.

Even before the MI5 element was revealed, Mosley was trying to lay a smokescreen to ensure that he will be at the centre of debate in Monaco and that the debate will not be about his fitness for office. In a letter to the FIA member clubs, which was carefully leaked by his spin doctor to the press on Friday night, the FIA president paints a picture of the organisation suddenly being under dire threat and that he, and only he, is capable of saving it from destruction.

Thus, he argues, not only should he not resign but there should be no rushed election to choose a successor because of the danger that a hastily chosen candidate could be an agent of those who want to destroy the FIA.

This, of course, is nonsense that Mosley has cooked up as yet another attempt to muddy the waters and distract from the core issue.

Indeed, the deep irony of the letter is that by far the biggest threat to the FIA is not from Mosley's imagined (or real) enemies, but Mosley himself, who - by failing to remove himself from the stage - has precipitated the biggest crisis in the organisation's history.

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