PARIS-. Mohammed Ben Sulayem, president of the International Automobile Federation (FIA)would have asked his teams to find a way not to approve the circuit of Las Vegaswhich housed its first Formula 1 Grand Prix in 2023the BBC revealed this Tuesday, citing a whistleblower.
The Emirati Mohammed Ben Sulayem would have asked his work team to “find solutions to prevent the FIA from certifying the circuit before the race weekend” in November 2023, can be read in an internal FIA report, which the BBC was able to consult, and which the complainant cites.
According to this source, “the objective was to find faults in the circuit to reject the license.” And he adds: “the problems on the circuit were intended to be artificially identified, without taking into account their real existence, with the ultimate goal of rejecting the license.”
The report, intended for the FIA Ethics Committee, adds that officials “could not find any problems with the circuit and thus certified that the circuit was suitable for racing.”
The reason why the president of the FIA, who succeeded Jean Todt in December 2021, would have wanted to prevent the dispute of that race was not explained. A conflict of influence and image undermines relations between the FIA, governing body of the F1 World Championship, and Liberty Media, which holds the commercial rights.
The new Las Vegas Grand Prix, 41 years after the last namesake, is a star event for Liberty Media, direct promoter of the event. With this race, F1 now has three Grand Prix in the United States, along with Austin and Miami.
According to the BBC, which cites the same source, Ben Sulayem would also have asked his officials to annul a sanction inflicted on Fernando Alonso in Saudi Arabia last year. An accusation that appears in the same report intended for the ethics committee.
Contacted by AFP, the FIA refused to make any assessments at the moment on these accusations.
In November 2023, the race weekend in Las Vegas did not start well: Carlos Sainz hit the poorly fixed cover of a manhole with his Ferrari, damaging his car, and the first free trials were cancelled.
The rest of the weekend was uneventful.
Source: AFP
