To the astonishment of the outside world, the sport of motor racing decided yesterday not to sack Max Mosley, the head of its governing body, despite lurid allegations about his private life.

The extraordinary victory came at a price for the 68-year-old multi-millionaire, however. After a lifetime of sharing the spotlight with royalty and celebrities, a welcome guest at the most glamorous venues, Mr Mosley will see out his final days in office as a pariah, repudiated by former allies and business partners.

He is no longer even guaranteed to attend grands prix at European venues. In this most image-conscious sport, whose revenues depend greatly on its reputation for sophistication and prestige, a man revealed to have a penchant for sado-masochistic bondage sessions with prostitutes is an unwelcome guest.

Mr Mosley, the son of the wartime Fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, has been fighting to survive as president of the Fédération Internationale de l’Autosport (FIA) ever since revelations in the News of the World three months ago about his private life.

The newspaper’s disclosures included the claim that Mr Mosley engaged in Nazi role-play during a five-hour orgy in a Chelsea “torture dungeon” – something he strenuously denied.

In the face of widespread calls for him to stand down – from car manufacturers, former racing drivers and, most recently, Bernie Ecclestone, the commercial rights holder in Formula One – Mr Mosley chose to have his fate decided by the full FIA membership in a vote of confidence carried out by a secret ballot.

However, in recognition of his status as an individual who is shunned by public figures, Mr Mosley has said that he will relinquish his public duties and concentrate on working behind the scenes of the sport until his term of office ends in October 2009.

Mr Mosley’s calculation that the heads of the member clubs – who travelled to Paris from all over the world – would back him despite the clamour from outside the FIA for him to go proved to be well judged. After a dramatic meeting at the organisation’s imposing headquarters on Place de la Concorde, Mr Mosley was endorsed by a margin of 103 votes to 55.

The closed session, attended by about 170 delegates – all of them men – began with a series of speeches from members, some in favour of Mr Mosley, some against. Mr Mosley then took the floor, arguing that the details of his private life, however embarrassing or distasteful they may be to some, should not have any bearing on his fitness for office.

He also tried to turn the issue away from his own conduct by claiming that the revelations about him and subsequent calls on him to resign, were part of a concerted attack on the independence and authority of the FIA that could not be allowed to succeed.

Anthony Scrivener, QC, the leading British barrister employed by FIA to investigate whether the News of the World was correct to portray Mr Mosley’s orgy as having Nazi connotations, rejected the paper’s interpretation unequivocally, according to delegates interviewed afterwards.

Mr Mosley, who has been cold-shouldered by governments and royal families in several countries since the scandal broke, did not make any public comment before or after the meeting. His spokesman said that he was “personally very moved by the expressions of support and confidence in him by large numbers of members who made statements from the floor”.

The spokesman added that Mr Mosley was not planning to make an appearance in public until the German Grand Prix in July or the Hungarian Grand Prix in early August.

If the outside world found it hard to believe that Mr Mosley had survived, there were many inside the FIA who were equally incredulous and angry at a decision that they said called into question their continued membership of a body representing more than 100 million ordinary motorists.

“We have to consider very seriously whether we want to remain part of an organisation that condones this kind of thing,” said Robert Darbelnet, president of the American Automobile Association (AAA), the biggest club within the organisation. “We don’t need the FIA,” he added.

The FIA has a complex form of internal democracy in which the size of a club’s membership does not correspond with the weight of its voting power, something Mr Mosley – a skilled political operator – used to great effect. Mr Mosley’s detractors were pointing out last night that the 103 votes cast in his favour were from clubs that, taken together, represent only 5 per cent of the ordinary membership. The AAA and the Canadian Automobile Club represent 60 per cent of the membership but had only two votes between them.

Another dissenter, Guido van Woerkom, the president of the Dutch motoring authority, said: “The main issue for me is not whether there was a Nazi element. The main issue is whether or not Max is credible to represent us in the world of mobility and sport. I don’t think, if you have that sort of behaviour, you are credible.”

The Iranian delegate said that Mr Mosley’s private life was irrelevant. “We don’t want to get involved in the politics,” he said. “The FIA is a professional organisation. Mr Mosley is doing a good job for this organisation, so we have voted for him.”

Two of Mr Mosley’s deputies will take over much of his public work.