Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the chairman of the FIA motorsport federation, is in trouble. According to the BBC, an investigation into him has been opened after a whistleblower informed the FIA that he influenced the race outcome of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
On March 19 last year, Sergio Pérez won the Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia at the Jeddah circuit. Red Bull teammate Max Verstappen, who would later become world champion, finished second, while Fernando Alonso finished third.
And it is precisely with the latter that the shoe pinches. At one point during the race, Alonso stood in the pit lane waiting for a 5-second time penalty to expire. But at the same time, a staff member from his Aston Martin team allegedly worked on his car – and that was not allowed according to F1 regulations. The stewards therefore imposed a new time penalty of 10 seconds on Alonso.
Penalty revoked
But Mohammed Ben Sulayem would not have agreed with that punishment. A whistleblower has told the FIA that the FIA chairman has instructed the stewards to withdraw the penalty. And so it happened, sending Alonso from fourth place to the podium, at the expense of George Russell.
The FIA’s ethics committee has now opened an investigation into the chairman. The results would follow in four to six weeks.
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