FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem is under fresh scrutiny as per report for his alleged involvement in interfering to change a F1 result.
The report comes from BBC Sport who have noted about the FIA Ethics committee investigating a matter involving its own President. This dates to the 2023 Saudi Arabian GP, where Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso’s penalty was overturned by the stewards.
Initially, the Spaniard was handed a 5s penalty for wrong grid positioning at the start of the race from the front-row. While serving that penalty, his car was touched by the jackman in those five seconds, for which he was handed another penalty of 10s.
But Aston Martin appealed the decision after the race and team manager Andy Stevenson proved that there was no clear conclusion in the meeting regarding ‘working on the car’ matter which had been in discussions within the Working Group at that time.
Alonso initially dropped out of the podium but was later given third place back in a rare overturn. Now BBC Sport is reporting that the FIA Compliance Officer is already looking into the matter after a whistleblower shared the information with the governing body.
The said person noted that Sulayem conveyed to Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa – the FIA’s vice-president for sport for the Middle East and North Africa region – that Alonso’s penalty should be revoked, which eventually happened.
The report by compliance officer Paolo Basarri noted about Sulayem expecting the stewards to overturn their decision. The final report is expected to be issued in four to six weeks time, and the BBC Sport adds that nor the FIA or Sulayem have responded to it.
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