FIA President Under Investigation For Alleged Attempt To Interfere Over F1 Race

The president of F1's regulatory body, FIA, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, is reportedly under investigation for trying to interfere with stewards' decisions during the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

The 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix took place on the 19th of March. It was won by Sergio Perez, followed by Max Verstappen in second place and Fernando Alonso in third place.

However, the Spanish driver shouldn't have been on the podium after the initial ruling of stewards. Alonso received a five-second penalty for the incorrect position of his car on the starting box.

He then went to serve this penalty during his first pit stop of the race. No mechanic can touch the car when penalties are served until the entire duration elapses. In this case, it was five seconds.

The problem for the double World Champion was that a rear jack touched his car before the penalty had elapsed, and consequently, he was given a 10-second penalty by the stewards.

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But, this decision was later overturned. As reported by BBC, the justification from the stewards at the time referred to a discussion between F1 teams and FIA on the subject of working on cars while serving penalties in the pits.

What did Mohammed Ben Sulayem do?

BBC reports that a whistleblower suggested to FIA that Sulayem was the one who initiated the overturn of the penalty.

The FIA president supposedly called FIA's vice president for sports for the Middle East and North Africa region, who was in Saudi Arabia for the race and made it clear that the decision about the penalty for Fernando Alonso should be revoked.

BBC claims to have seen a report by an FIA compliance officer to its ethics committee. It apparently said that Sulayem required stewards "to overturn their decision to" give Alonso the 10-second penalty.

BBC also claims to have verified this information from several senior figures in F1 and "close to the FIA." Neither Sulayem nor FIA have responded to requests for comment at the time of publishing this article.

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