FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem says the sport’s governing body will “never get the credit” it deserves for running Formula 1.
The former rally driver will mark the third anniversary of his election to the top job at the FIA. He will soon have a re-election campaign to focus on.Although the governing body of motorsport is responsible for much more than just Formula 1, the world championship is unquestionably what it is most famous for. But much of the credit for F1’s growth in recent years has gone to Liberty Media, which became its commercial rights holder four years before Ben Sulayem took charge at the FIA.
However he believes the positive changes the FIA have made tend to be overlooked, and its contribution to F1’s progress should be regarded as similarly important. “Liberty Media did a great job in transforming Formula 1,” he told Motorsport last month. “If you tell me if I could go back in time, would I undo [that]? No way. I wouldn’t undo that, but I would just make sure that the FIA is two equals with them.
Not everyone is enamoured with the FIA under Ben Sulayem, however. Former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner recently laid out his concerns about the direction the governing body has taken since Ben Sulayem replaced Jean Todt:
“My differences of opinion with the current president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, for instance, have become pretty well known over the past couple of years, and comparing him with Jean Todt, who in my opinion was an excellent president, is like comparing apples with pears,” wrote Steiner in his new book.
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“Don’t get me wrong, Mohammed’s a nice guy, but his era in charge has been chaotic so far and he’s managed to upset just about every team and every team principal. “Jean, on the other hand, always ran a steady ship and managed to get on with just about everybody. Unlike Mohammed, he had a background in F1 and that inspired confidence.”
Ben Sulayem was elected the FIA’s new president five days after the farcical conclusion to the 2021 world championship. At first the FIA attempted to downplay the seriousness of its own race director interfering with the outcome of the championship by enforcing its rules incorrectly. Even as Mercedes considered whether to appeal against Lewis Hamilton’s controversial defeat, Todt issued a statement which, while confirming the matter would be investigated, made plain his view nothing untoward had happened. Instead, Todt complained the reaction to the race was “tarnishing the image of the championship and the due celebration of the first drivers’ world championship title won by Max Verstappen.”
The thankless task of sorting out the mess fell to the new president’s team. The result was sweeping changes: Not merely the replacement of race director Michael Masi, but significant structural changes around race control. Ben Sulayem also insisted future controversies would be handled with greater transparency, which was borne out by the detailed examination of serious safety failings which followed Pierre Gasly’s near-miss with a recovery vehicle at the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix.
F1’s regulations may forever be a cause for controversy, but some sensible changes have been introduced in recent seasons. Drivers – not to mention fans and commentators – have long clamoured for clearer and more consistent enforcement of track limits, which is finally happening following a series of controversies last year.
The FIA made another popular move when it attempted to bolster F1’s thin, 10-team grid. Formula One Management has thus far resisted its attempts to allow Andretti to enter as an 11th team, and it remains to be seen whether the pressure now being applied by the US Department of Justice will make a difference.
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Like FOM, the FIA was also quick to respond to the challenges presented by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022. The governing body swiftly imposed restrictions to prevent the aggressor nation using motorsport to burnish its image.
A lot of this is unglamorous stuff which is never going to grab attention in the way that a new race in Las Vegas, for example, has done for FOM. But while the FIA is arguably due more credit for some of its changes, the same cannot be said for everything it has done.
F1’s superlicence points system, for example, remains a bone of contention, as it transparently exists to offer favourable routes into grand prix racing for those who participate in FIA series. Moreover, the governing body was quick to rewrite its rules earlier this year to adjust its 18-year age limit, but wouldn’t dream of doing anything to allow the eminently qualified Colton Herta to enter the championship two years ago.
The 2022 drivers’ championship may not have been as controversial as the year before, but it still ended in farcical scenes. Verstappen had to be persuaded he’d won the title after a poorly-written new rule on points allocations for shortened races caused widespread confusion. Ben Sulayem denied the FIA was to blame for the flaw in its regulations, as he insisted on-stage to Red Bull team principal Christian Horner during that year’s FIA Gala.
In the same toe-curling exchange, Ben Sulayem also made light of Red Bull’s penalty for exceeding the budget cap in 2021. Several rival teams were unimpressed both by the leniency of the sanction for Red Bull’s £1.8m overspend while designing its new car for 2022, and how long it took the FIA to rule on it.
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Ben Sulayem’s FIA has also pursued a tough line against how drivers and other competitors may express themselves. This has included strict new rules forbidding drivers from making “political statements”, seemingly a reaction to Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and others showing their support for diversity, equality and action against climate change in preceding seasons. Underlining the seriousness of its desire to keep the drivers in line, last year the FIA quadrupled the maximum fine they may face. And while the FIA may be within its right to police bad language in its press conferences, it has done so inconsistently and in a manner practically guaranteed to provoke ridicule.
Around the same time a newspaper republished sexist comments made by Ben Sulayem in 2001. Three months later another newspaper accused of “sexism and bullying” in 2022, claims an FIA spokesperson denied.
As 2023 ended, the FIA triggered fresh controversy when it emerged Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff and F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff, who are married, were being investigated by its Compliance Department over a potential leak of confidential information. The matter was hastily dropped days later when all Mercedes’ rival teams declared they had raised no concerns.
Soon afterwards, Ben Sulayem found himself the subject of a compliance investigation of his own, over alleged interference in the 2023 Saudi Arabian and Las Vegas grands prix. He was cleared, but the consequences of the FIA’s pursuit of the Wolffs is yet to play out: Susie Wolff began a legal action over the matter in March.
It’s hardly surprising, therefore, if the FIA’s changes for the better have been overlooked amid the heat and noise which had accompanied it. Does the FIA deserve more credit? Perhaps, but the role it has played in F1’s recent success is undoubtedly smaller than the effect of Liberty Media’s promotion of the series. Has there been too much chaos? Perhaps, but it’s not as if F1 was ever lacking in controversy.
Ben Sulayem and Steiner are both right to an extent: The FIA doesn’t get all the credit it deserves, but it has also been embroiled in needless rows. However, only one of those individuals has the power to change that.
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Formula 1
- FIA introducing “Operational Regulations” and gender-neutral terms to F1 rules
- The last driver to better Leclerc’s 11-place lap one charge isn’t in F1 anymore
- McLaren’s entry fee doubles to $6.1 million due to constructors’ title win
- McLaren are world champions with fewest grand prix wins in 25 years
- Leclerc quickest in F1’s post-season, Antonelli fifth after reduced day
Jere (@jerejj)
2nd October 2024, 7:38
They’d receive more credit if they stopped being hell-bent on all sorts of harmless & trivial matters.
BasCB (@bascb)
2nd October 2024, 12:27
Exactly. And let the facts speak for themselves instead of grandstanding with forcing Lewis to remove his ear buds and Max to do “community work” for an F bomb etc.
JackL
2nd October 2024, 14:24
Yes and no. The regulator is like the IT guy at any company. No one notices when things are running smoothly, or thanks him. But the second there’s an issue, all hell breaks loose and everyones demanding answers. No matter what they do, there will be criticism. If they didnt regulate it, they couldve easily been criticised as well (note how often Bernie or Max would criticse Lewis for the way he expressed himself). There’s just no winning. The only thing they can do is try and back away from the ones that receive backlash. From what I understand, the reason that Ben Sulayem has taken the approach that he has is that he feels that F1 is the FIA’s series, not Liberty Media’s, and is trying to assert greater control over it. Whether this is the right or wrong approach, only time will tell.
The FIA has tons of problems, and they were never going to be fixed by one president and in one term (stewarding, crappy Pirelli wet tyres, etc). Has he made good progress, yes. Has he caused controversy? Yes. That seems like a job requirement for FIA presidents though, but it seems like generally the FIA is taking the series in the right direction.
rprp
2nd October 2024, 14:42
The analogy is flawed. The IT people will/should only get it in the neck if they have made a howler. If it’s something done in good faith, with all the reasonable checks made, but has gone wrong, and not as a result of any carelessness or neglect, then they’ll look at what they can do better.
What has really happened in the MBS era? I can’t really think of anything of note that the FIA has done. Running races is their day job. They haven’t really pushed safety on anymore (what are the outcomes of the Grosjean crash investigation?), what are the outcomes of the 2021 controversy? What improvements have been made to the still inconsistent stewarding?
And all MBS seems to do is create confrontation. The recent swearing debacle – I actually agree that the drivers ought to be careful with their language, especially outside of the car. I agree that Verstappen should’ve been and has appropriately been punished (he deliberately dropped the F-bomb). But it’s his confrontational attitude to it that rubs people up the wrong way. He went on the attack, likening rapping to swearing, rather than explaining the reasoning for the guidance (which as far as I am aware, is the same as it always has been). I suspect his management style is to shout as loudly and see what sticks. Feels like Balestre in his day.
anon
2nd October 2024, 15:24
There are suggestions that some within the FIA feel that it’s not about whether the organisation gets enough credit, but rather about Sulayem wanting to be the centre of attention and getting any credit or praise for the organisation directed towards him instead.
Nick T.
3rd October 2024, 6:43
+1 It’s just, if not more, simply a case of how he goes about things rather than what he actually does that has created so much antipathy. To me, that’s a clear sign of MBS craving media and fame. The exact type of guy you don’t want at the top of what is essentially a glorified referee posing as a holistic motorsport organizer.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
4th October 2024, 22:29
The IT department can get credit if going beyond expectations – and if providing a suitable avenue for gratitude to be expressed. A quick survey question is little trouble. Asking to have equal billing with the people who will be using the IT (or worse still, equal billing with the people paying for the IT and its users!) is a recipe for backlash.
Raymond
2nd October 2024, 8:01
That photoshop of Obama giving himself a medal comes to mind
Red Andy (@red-andy)
2nd October 2024, 8:12
In any sport, the governing body should be seen to have failed when people are talking more about it than they are about the actual sporting action. It is never a sign of a healthy sport when politics overshadows the actual competition.
In this sense, Mosley’s FIA tenure was a failure, Todt’s was mostly a success and MBS must be said to have largely failed. In particular, the organisation’s headline-grabbing antics, such as the crusades against jewellery and swearing, must be seen as a sign of poor leadership.
Mayrton
2nd October 2024, 8:46
Absolutely not. They are being played regulatory & business wise and sportive wise lost all credibility. I think there is hardly any reason to be pleased.
ajpennypacker (@ajpennypacker)
2nd October 2024, 18:36
Reasons:
1. Achieved the highest popularity of the sport ever
2. For the first time all teams are capable of reporting net income. It’s actually profitable
3. The series is evolving in such a way that manufacturers are eager to get in and instead of begging them to come in (like back in the day) they are not shutting the doors on aspiring participants
4. F1 salaries are higher than ever
5. The sport’s TV ratings are the highest they have ever been
6. There are more races outside of Europe than ever
But casuals like to get caught in the silly things like the regulations around swearing, or wearing piercings, and extrapolate from that that FIA must be doing an awful job. They are not perfect. But they have taken the sport forward with big steps.
grat
2nd October 2024, 23:37
But most of those are more to Liberty than the FIA. Domenicali works for Liberty, not ben Sulayem. The FIA does the rulebook, but much of the technical regulations has been driven by Domenicali, Brawn, and Bernie in reverse chronological order.
So far, ben Sulayem has meddled and annoyed. While they’ve been competent at things such as actual event management, stewarding, safety, etc., the truth is that stewarding is still incredibly inconsistent, technical notes still aren’t viewable by the public, and the FIA still makes deals with incredibly questionable countries because it’s profitable. The cash-for-points system that creates incentives for longer and longer calendars with more sprint races and extra points generates a fantastic amount of revenue for the FIA– and no one knows where it goes.
I can’t think of anything that the FIA does that is better under ben Sulayem than it was under Jean Todt.
Nick T.
3rd October 2024, 2:53
Almost NONE of that is due to the FIA. And which F1 salaries are you talking about?
notagrumpyfan
2nd October 2024, 8:51
But besides the commercial successes (FOM) there is little to celebrate other than increased safety (well done FIA! mostly was done before Ben Sulayem joined).
– The rules are a mess (e.g. 2021 ambiguity in the sporting rules, and overly tight and wordy technical regulations) and are changed at a whim.
– The participants are extremely limited in what they say and how they express themselves.
– They don’t defend their own positions regarding new entrants, and seem to sway for the desires of FOM.
– And even in the one thing they did well (safety), they probably went too far by cancelling any racing when the first serious raindrop falls.
I don’t think they deserve any more credit than they already get!
MichaelN
2nd October 2024, 8:56
It was under Todt that Liberty got the influence over new entries. The F1 rules don’t actually give them any rule, that’s all Concorde Agreement stuff. It’s also why Liberty was able to shape the current cars, with Ross Brawn heading Liberty’s technical working group.
Ben Sulayem has actually been trying to reverse that, which is why he gets so much resistance from the F1 power brokers.
And yeah, F1 has always had room for some creative “reinterpretation” of the rules. It’s not great, but it’s not really the president who has a say in that.
MichaelN
2nd October 2024, 8:51
What a surprise, the team bosses like Todt who basically gave them the keys to run the show.
The FIA is doing a great job. Of course it’s not perfect, and the president has made a few needless arguments, but so what? The races are run without major issue, there’s more consistency in the officiating, there’s actually been a proper race ban that has redeemed the penalty point system, they’ve had a thorough application process for a new team, safety teams have done a great job, and so on.
There is always room for improvement, and indeed differences of opinion about which priorities should be pursued, but on the whole F1 is a very well run motorsport series.
Nick T.
2nd October 2024, 9:13
What a joke. They think they run F1? All they are is an arbitrator of rules. MBS is on some insane power trip. The only reason they weren’t jettisoned long ago is that apparently the F1 name cannot be used without their permission. So, basically they’re a copyright holder getting in the way as much as anything else.
MichaelN
2nd October 2024, 10:28
The rules that stipulate how the sport is run, yes. Everything from the track inspection, marshal posts, technical scrutineering, race control, stewards and the safety car is organised by the FIA.
And pretty much all of it runs smoothly every race weekend.
Nick T.
2nd October 2024, 16:29
That’s been the domain of a small technical group financed by F1 since forever. And that’s nothing new they’ve had to put together. 95% of heavy lifting is responsibility of the race organize. Another 5% split across F1, the FIA and misc. other organizations. But, beyond that, as someone who has worked w/sanctioning bodies for decades, the majority of the work is typically done by local representatives with HQ having little to no involvement.
anon
2nd October 2024, 21:07
MichaelN, most of those activities aren’t actually directly run by the FIA though. As noted by Nick T., the FIA’s own regulations state that the FIA organises the championship, but it puts most of the responsibility and most of the onus for recruiting the staff to run the event onto the national motorsport body.
For example, when it comes to scruitineering, whilst the FIA appoints a Technical Delegate as the overall head, most of the actual scruitineering work is not carried out by FIA staff, but by staff appointed by the national motorsport body.
As for marshal posts, the FIA’s regulations state that it’s the responsibility of the clerk of the course to manage the marshal posts. Again, the clerk of the course, as well as the staff who operate the marshal posts, are appointed by the national motorsport body, not the FIA.
slowmo (@slowmo)
2nd October 2024, 10:02
The FIA can’t even follow their own rules, they’re incompetent at best or corrupt at worst.
sam
2nd October 2024, 17:21
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
4th October 2024, 5:37
its not incompetence. It’s mediocracy. This is what happens when an organization has peaked, and it’s leadership are so corrupt and lazy, that they need a culture of incompetence to ensure their control and influence. Ignorance is the easiest way to control people, next to fear. People that know they don’t deserve their (‘privileged’) positions are much more malleable than those who can do for themselves.
Tristan
2nd October 2024, 10:13
Don’t the FIA get a tonne of credit from inside and outside motorsports? I don’t really understand what or how much more credit they could possibly deserve and from whom.
S
2nd October 2024, 10:14
Does the FIA deserve more credit?
I’d say not. They’ve willingly given away most of their power in F1 – initially in exchange for increased income, and later due to fear of mutiny from the teams (since the teams have entered a collusion with Liberty Media).
They’ve allowed the Concorde Agreement and the majority of its stakeholders to become far too powerful over F1 – such that the FIA now often (seemingly) only has minor role in the running of their own flagship racing series.
However, MBS is making a real effort to correct that, and for that he certainly deserves extra credit.
There would be few things more difficult than attempting to regain the power, control and ultimately money from those who have seized it over the last decade or so in particular. He has put himself in an immensely unpopular position, but has (I believe) excellent intentions for both F1 and the FIA as a whole. Far more so than his opposition.
There are so many comments/complaints here (and all around the internet and other media) that F1 has sold its soul for cash – the fact is that the FIA is the only party that can correct that. They need all the support they can get.
Coventry Climax
2nd October 2024, 11:13
Respect is not something you ask for, it is something you earn.
And earning it is way harder and takes way more time than losing it.
Althasil (@althasil)
2nd October 2024, 20:35
This is the right response. Actions speak for themselves.
Dex
2nd October 2024, 11:47
Since when does FIA run F1?
Asd
2nd October 2024, 18:00
How does it feel to get out from under the rock you’ve lived all your life, huh? :)
Dex
2nd October 2024, 21:28
Care to elaborate?
Nick T.
3rd October 2024, 2:57
He can’t because he’s wrong if he thinks the FIA actually has a large day-to-day role within the administration of F1.
Chris (@austin-healey)
2nd October 2024, 14:32
I’m not aware of any other sport in the world where the fees to the Governing Body (FIA and their country representatives) are so onerous for amateurs.
Most sporting bodies use the funds generated by the professional level of the code to subsidize the amateur and junior levels.
Not FIA
The many subsidize the few.
Fix it!!
Nick T.
2nd October 2024, 16:31
Precisely. They’ve done F all to help grassroots motorsports, which should be their main mission. Grassroots motorsports is in worse shape than it’s ever been besides maybe after 2008.
Robert Williams (@weiliwen)
2nd October 2024, 14:48
Worst decision ever to appoint this guy to the job.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
2nd October 2024, 15:10
Why doesn’t he add a new award for the FIA to present to itself, at the prize giving in Rwanda.
Kroxigo
2nd October 2024, 15:51
As someone who has designed F1 cars, the FIA sucks when it comes to writing rules. The rules are terribly written and are mostly copy and paste from previous years. They don’t think things through and have loads of loopholes that are seemingly purposefully written in the rules. I could improve the consistency of rules and how they are applied by just spending a few days re-writing the technical regulations. They open so many doors for the teams to think ‘this is some grey area, if we can be bothered with the politics and arguing then lets exploit the grey area’ – so it just comes down to a game of influence in which teams like Ferrari have more sway than other teams thus making the ‘sport’ unfair. They changed the rear wing flap pull test and effectively made it meaningless because they originally specced the test vector to be above the flap rotation axis so that the flaps would want to open up when tested. Which was really obvious to me when doing the structural analysis, so obvious that I thought it was intentional…. and then they folded and reduced the height of the test vector but without changing the associated allowable deflection for whatever unknown reason. Also the test vector that they define doesn’t actually exist on some rear wing flaps making them impossible to be tested to the rules. Oh man I could go on and on. The initial rules are effectively like a Beta test and then they get the teams to refine them, so teams that contribute more the FIA have a greater influence in the rule making and that is usually the bigger teams.
Sandwhichahnds
2nd October 2024, 16:20
I genuinely don’t understand the ownership structure of F1, and I am suspicious of anyone who claims they do, who either have too much time on their hands to have a valuable opinion or are talking shit.
In accordance with that, can’t tell but article does explain lots of things.
Scott (@scott6428)
2nd October 2024, 20:01
The FIA is in the business of regulating. the stewards always find a reason to get involved to justify their role.
Compared to IndyCar for example F1 is over regulated.
Liberty has done far more than the FIA for F1. I’m not sure why Ben feels the need to show up all the races at the FIA’s expense assumably.
Nick T.
3rd October 2024, 2:58
Because he wants to be famous, which is a terrible thing for the FIA president to want. It guarantees that he and the FIA are going to get involved for inappropriate reasons.
Neil (@neilosjames)
2nd October 2024, 22:21
I like governing bodies like I like politicians. I appreciate them most when I forget they exist.
The FIA does a reasonable job of being quietly forgettable most of the time, despite its ever-present umbrella-ness, so I give it credit for that.
JMDan (@danmar)
3rd October 2024, 4:09
He couldn’t be more wrong. The FIA is abysmal. Like all global governing bodies.
Steven Williamson
3rd October 2024, 5:44
It’s a joke, literally ‘bread and circuses’! The only reason I’m still watching at this point is for the lols seeing Max throwing his toys out the pram after losing his asymmetrical braking and struggling to get near even a podium!
BenjaminS (@benihana)
3rd October 2024, 16:53
Asking the FIA for credit is a terrible thing to ask. They don’t require credit if things work well since that is their job. They do, however require criticism when things don’t quite work out like the swearing controversy, secret Ferrari F1 deals and a bunch more. All this guy wants is the spotlight for himself not the FIA.
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
4th October 2024, 22:13
The FIA hasn’t implemented the Bianchi settlement in full, seven and a half years after it was agreed. The last three world titles have been invalidated by the FIA’s persistent refusal to regulate according to its own regulations. Requests for professionalism and credit work less well when the organisation leader making the request has shown himself to be so unprofessional and discrediting himself – and in ways far more harmful to the sport he’s supposed to be looking after than a poor choice of adjective on daytime TV.
Arguably, the parts of the FIA Ben Sulayem wishes got the most additional credit (himself, his predecesor and those under his immediate command) actually deserve less credit and more criticism than is typically provided. They’ve had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the new era of accountability and responsibility – and some of them are still resisting.
That Ben Sulayem wrote the comments RaceFans discusses in the context of complaining about the British media convicting him when he himself said he was going to take a step back from F1 at the start of 2023 and then went back on the promise in ways that harmed F1, is further evidence that a revolution is needed at the top of the FIA.
There are ways for a governing body to get success in receiving credit for actual work done. However, the work has to actually be done before most of those methods can or should succeed, and that’s not the case here.
(It is of course easy to forget, in all this, that the marshals and various other volunteers who are essential to F1 being able to run at all are eternally under-credited for their actions. They haven’t had a revolution in the same sense as Liberty – because they didn’t need one. The revolution that the FIA needs is one quite focused on specific elements of how the leadership does things, and how its wishes get communicated to the people who take orders directly from them).
Alianora La Canta (@alianora-la-canta)
4th October 2024, 22:27
I realise the poor choice of adjective isn’t exactly the most pressing issue, but it’s a bit like the candidate who told an entire assessment centre that their first priority after a hypothetical plane crash in extreme cold would be to coat themselves in the nearest bowl of grease. Every time the interviewer went back to the candidate to find out their next step in the hypothetical situation, it would always be prefaced with, “OK, so you are covered in grease…”
The candidate got one of the jobs, probably due to keeping their cool throughout all this, but we were all advised to think before saying things like that on the job!