F1 News: FIA president investigated in latest BLOW to sport's credibility

Ben Sulayem and Horner in talks in Bahrain — Photo: © IMAGO

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FIA president investigated in latest BLOW to F1 credibility

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Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Tuesday 5 March 2024 04:57

Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the current FIA president, is under investigation over concerns he exerted his influence over a Formula 1 race result.

The BBC report that the 62-year-old has been referred to his own organisation's ethics committee over claims from an anonymous whistleblower that he attempted to intervene to remove a penalty against Fernando Alonso.

The race in question was the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, where Alonso finished third, behind the Red Bulls of Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen.

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Alonso had been given a five second stop-and-go penalty in the race, before being slammed with another 10 second penalty due to his team working on his car during that initial penalty being served.

However, it is being alleged that Ben Sulayem himself influenced the decision to take that second penalty away from Alonso, allowing the Aston Martin driver to finish ahead of Mercedes' George Russell and claim the final podium position.

Fernando Alonso claimed eight podiums in 2023

Mohammed Ben Sulayem recently held a meeting with under-fire Christian Horner

Alonso podium in doubt

At the time, the justification given by the stewards for overturning the decision was that a discussion had taken place between teams and the FIA on the subject of working on cars while serving a penalty in the pits.

The right of review decision said: "We concluded that there was no clear agreement, as was suggested to the stewards previously, that could be relied upon to determine that parties had agreed that a jack touching a car would amount to working on the car."

However, BBC Sport are reporting that the whistleblower revealed Ben Sulayem allegedly "pretended the stewards to overturn their decision to issue" the penalty to Alonso.

Formula 1 FIA Fernando Alonso Saudi Arabian Grand Prix Mohammed Ben Sulayem BBC