The royal families of the motor racing world may not want him around, nor the boardrooms of many of the big companies that sponsor Formula One, but the most powerful man in the sport has decided that Max Mosley is acceptable and he should be welcomed back.

Bernie Ecclestone has moved from an uneasy silence about Mosley in the immediate weeks after the scandal broke over his sadomasochistic orgy with prostitutes to calling on his friend to stand down as FIA president to giving him his full backing.

And not only that. Ecclestone claimed yesterday that he had joined the chorus of voices calling on Mosley to resign only because those around him wanted him to do so. These will have included many of the Formula One teams, plus members of the board of CVC Capital Partners, which jointly owns Formula One with Ecclestone and was determined at one stage that Mosley should not continue.

Ecclestone, who argued that Mosley can still be seen as a credible figure, said: “For a short period I said he should resign because I had so much pressure from the people to say he should resign. In a lot of ways, at the time, I wish he had done, but now I don't see this any different and don't see why he should. Max works and does the best he can for the sport, 100 per cent. All these people say they don't want to meet Max and they don't want to do this or that ... it is all going to disappear.”

Ecclestone told BBC Radio 5 Live that he was looking forward to welcoming Mosley to the paddock at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza in two weeks' time, when the FIA president is planning only his second official appearance in Formula One since the scandal broke in late March. “I will welcome him back. He should come back and he should just carry on like he always carries on,” Ecclestone said.

The Formula One commercial rights-holder believes that people will forget the lurid imagery associated with the revelations and he questions whether Mosley's refusal to step down is damaging the sport. “I thought, and was told, it would affect the business, but, with all these things, people have now really come to the conclusion that whatever happened with Max is Max and nothing to do with anybody else,” Ecclestone said. “I don't think they really care any more - people forget all these things.

“It was a shock at the time it happened, to everybody. If it had happened to other people, it probably wouldn't have been a shock. Because it was Max, and what with that about his dad [Sir Oswald Mosley, the wartime Fascist leader], so it was all blown up a little bit.”

Ecclestone's 40-year friendship with Mosley has been severely strained during the crisis over Mosley's conduct after the scandal, but the Formula One ringmaster said that it has not harmed their relationship. “We're still the same,” Ecclestone said.

Even the vexed question of Mosley's retirement is no longer worrying Ecclestone, who said recently that he is concerned that Mosley may try to continue after his presidential term ends in October next year. Mosley has a track record of changing his mind at the last minute and responding to the voluntarily expressed wishes of his electors not to abandon them. But Ecclestone even appeared to welcome the prospect of another four-year term of office for Mosley.

“Well, he's said he's going to stand down before and hasn't, so I don't know,” he said. “The problem really is, if we look and be really selfish and think about the sport as it is, it is difficult to know who is going to replace him and do the things he does.”

Ecclestone and Mosley started to rebuild their relationship during a series of meetings that began with an “ice-breaker” shortly before the FIA met in Paris to vote on Mosley's future in early June. After weeks of megaphone diplomacy during which Ecclestone called for Mosley to go and Mosley gave warning that Formula One was suddenly in crisis, a more pragmatic mood has developed.

One reason is that the scandal and the crisis that followed demonstrated that Formula One, as a business, has got itself inextricably bound up with the FIA and an angry FIA president can turn himself into a roadblock if he does not approve of changes to the way the sport is run.