The FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem is under investigation for allegedly interfering over the result of an F1 race from last year.
A whistleblower has told the FIA, motorsport’s governing body, that Ben Sulayem intervened to overturn a penalty given to Fernando Alonso at the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
According to BBC Sport, the claim is in a report by an FIA compliance officer to its ethics committee, though neither the governing body nor its president have commented on the matter.
Alonso was given a 10-second penalty after the race in Jeddah after a member of his pit crew had touched his Aston Martin while he was in the pits serving a five-second penalty – something that is illegal.
This demoted him from third to fourth, with Mercedes’ George Russell initially promoted to the podium, before the penalty was overturned.
At the time, the stewards said this essentially occurred because of a lack of clarity in the regulations, with the rules later tightened up to ensure that a repeat incident did not occur.
However, it is now claimed that Ben Sulayem called Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamas bin Isa Al Khalifa, the FIA’s vice-president for sport for the Middle East and North Africa region, who was in Saudi Arabia for the race.
He made it clear to him that he thought Alonso’s penalty should be overturned.
In the aforementioned report, it is said Ben Sulayem ‘expected the stewards to overturn their decision to issue’ a penalty.
The ethics committee is expected to take four to six weeks to issue its report on the matter.
This revelation is the latest scandalous F1 story to emerge following the one surrounding Red Bull team principal Christian Horner that has overshadowed the start of the 2024 season.
More to follow…
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