Jan.17 (GMM) Sir Jackie Stewart has hit back at Max Mosley by suggesting the FIA president is an "amateur" who should either quit or be sacked.



The 68-year-old Scot, who won three drivers' championships before going on to run a team and the club that promotes the British grand prix, was responding to Mosley's criticism of his recent outspokenness about the way formula one is governed.



During the melee, Mosley ridiculed Stewart's tartan trousers and slammed him as a "certified half-wit".



"If the president of the International Olympic Committee said something like that about a gold medal winner, I think he would have lost his job," Stewart told the Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper, on a visit to Toronto to promote his autobiography.



"I thought it was totally inappropriate from a man in his position as president of the governing body of a major sporting organisation to even think of speaking in a manner such as that," he said.



Stewart thinks Mosley, a son of aristocracy, barrister, former racer and team founder, is not well enough qualified to lead the governing body of a sport like formula one.



"This is a very heavily capital invested sport and presently the president of the FIA is not paid and therefore he is part time and an amateur," he said.



Stewart argues that the governing structure of a body like the FIA should reflect the standards of the "normal business or legal" world.



"They have to headhunt a captain of industry and pay him accordingly to be an executive director or president who is not part time and not an amateur," he said.