FIA chief being investigated for interfering with F1 race result with Ben Sulayem intervening to overturn Alonso penalty
FORMULA ONE has been plunged into another major crisis after the FIA President, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, was placed under investigation for fudging a race result.
The race in question was the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix where Ben Sulayem has been accused of interfering to overturn a penalty given to Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.
A whistleblower has told the sport’s governing body, the FIA, 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 officiating in Saudi Arabia for the race.
The whistleblower claims Ben Sulayem made it clear that Alonso’s penalty should be revoked.
The Aston Martin driver was given a 10-second penalty when his mechanics worked on his car while he was serving a five-second penalty for being out of position on the grid.
F1 rules stated at the time that mechanics must not work on any car while it is stationary and serving a penalty and in this instance a jack was placed underneath his car.
According to the BBC, compliance officer Paolo Basarri, says the informant reported that Ben Sulayem “pretended the stewards to overturn their decision to issue” the penalty to Alonso.
However, the word “pretendere” translated from Italian means to require or expect.
The penalty had initially dropped Alonso behind Mercedes’ George Russell, who inherited third place.
But in a confusing switch the penalty was reversed and Alonso was promoted to third on the podium where he received the trophy from CEO of Aramco, Amin Hassan Nasser.
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE 2023 SAUDI GP?
Fernando Alonso lined up on the grid in second place but with his car slightly outside of the markings that signify the grid slot for the race.
It was picked up by race officials during the race and he was given a five second time penalty, which is served when a driver makes their next pitstop.
With an in-race pitstop, mechanics are not allowed to work on a driver’s car but in this incident, his Aston Martin team had placed a rear jack under his car and lifted it before serving the penalty.
The incident was noticed by the FIA’s VAR system in Geneva but the investigation was not completed until well AFTER the race had finished.
Of course by then, Alonso had completed the podium ceremony but the stewards decided that any item touching the car was the same as working on it and issued the penalty.
Alonso’s team appealed the decision and finally the FIA performed a U-turn on their initial decision and at 01:15 in the morning local time his third place was reinstalled at George Russell’s expense.
The Saudi state-owned oil and gas company has a long-term global sponsorship deal with Aramco, who are also strategic partners with Alsono’s Aston Martin team.
The FIA ethics committee will now start their report and comes after the Red Bull bombshell involving Christian Horner.
Last week, Horner was cleared of inappropriate behaviour following an internal investigation only to have a smear campaign waged on his private life.
And in a bitter fall out, Max Verstappen’s father Jos has called for the Red Bull chief’s head.
Meanwhile, the pressure has been ramped up on Ben Sulayem, who is having a disastrous tenure as FIA President since he was elected in 2021.
He has overseen a bungled investigation into Toto and Susie Wolff’s relationship on the claim of a conflict of interest.
His handling of the Abu Dhabi GP fallout and weak report into Michael Masi stewardship of the race, which resulted in Lewis Hamilton losing his crown to Max Verstappen.
He has also fallen out with F1 after stalling on their plans to host sprint races and received a “cease-and-desist” letter from F1’s lawyers after commenting on the value of the sport.
And finally, he was heavily criticised for some sexist remarks on his own website.
Under his leadership the organisation has lost several key figures in recent months.
Sun Sport has asked the FIA for comment.