Global motorsports governing body FIA president Mohamed Ben Sulayem is reportedly under investigation for allegedly interfering to change the result of an F1 race last season. Ben Sulayem is claimed to have asked the stewards to overturn their decision to penalise Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso during the 2023 Saudi Grand Prix.
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According to BBC, an FIA compliance officer has made these claims in his reports to its ethics committee citing a whistleblower.
At the Saudi GP last year, Alonso was first given a five-second penalty as a result of him placing his car just outside the starting box on the grid before the race. And when he was serving the penalty at his first pit stop, a further 10-second penalty was handed with Aston Martin found to have breached the rules by working on Alonso’s car.
The second penalty was given after Alonso’s car was deemed to have been touched by the rear jack before the ‘end of full time duration’.
The decision was eventually overturned with the stewards explaining, “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.”
As per the report, the whistleblower has alleged that Ben Sulayem told Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamas bin Isa Al Khalifa, FIA’s vice-president for sport for the Middle East and North Africa region, during the Saudi GP that Alonso’s penalty should be revoked.
As per the compliance officer, the whistleblower has claimed that Ben Sulayem “pretended* the stewards to overturn their decision to issue” penalty to Alonso.
*The word pretendere means require/expect in Italian.
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