FEBRUARY 9, 2023

New structure allows FIA President to step back from F1

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has informed the Formula One teams he’s stepping away from the day-to-day running of Formula One affairs now that he has completed the restructuring of his office with the appointment of a new CEO for the FIA, but also promoting Nikolas Tombazis to the role of Singe Seater Director and hiring veteran Steve Nielsen to become the new Sporting Director. With this new structure in place, Ben Sulayam wrote to the ten Formula One teams to let them know Tombazis is now their direct point of contact for all Formula One matters, but also made it clear he'll still be deciding on all high-level maters and on the strategic decisions that will have a bigger influence in the future of the sport.

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has informed the Formula One teams he’s stepping away from the day-to-day running of Formula One affairs now that he has completed the restructuring of his office with the appointment of a new CEO for the FIA, but also promoting Nikolas Tombazis to the role of Singe Seater Director and hiring veteran Steve Nielsen to become the new Sporting Director. With this new structure in place, Ben Sulayam wrote to the ten Formula One teams to let them know Tombazis is now their direct point of contact for all Formula One matters, but also made it clear he'll still be deciding on all high-level maters and on the strategic decisions that will have a bigger influence in the future of the sport.

As soon as he was elected, Ben Sulayem realized the FIA still operated in a very amateurish way and was quick to identify, “the need to put together a professional structure, because we have to operate as a company but we don’t have a CEO, we don’t have a business structure compatible with our times.” He therefore made hiring a CEO one of his priorities and recently Natalie Robyn got the job, leaving her role as Volvo Switzerland CEO after experiences at executive level with Nissan and Daimler.

A spokesman for the FIA reminded that, “the president’s manifesto clearly set out this plan before he was elected. It pledged ‘the appointment of an FIA CEO to provide an integrated and aligned operation,’ as well as to ‘introduce a revised governance framework’ under ‘a leadership team focused on transparency, democracy, and growth.’ These goals, as well as the announcement of the new structure of the Single-Seater Department, have been planned since the beginning of this Presidency.”

The Federation spokesman then added that, “the FIA president has a wide remit that covers the breadth of global motor sport and mobility, and now that the structural reorganisation in Formula One is complete this is a natural next step.”

While the FIA insists Ben Sulayem’s plan had been known since he got elected, some Formula One Team Principals are linking this announcement to the escalation of the confrontation between the Federation and the Commercial Rights Holder. It was noted that while the Emirati was quick to welcome the link between Cadillac and Andretti, putting his weight behind the American’s candidature to a berth in Grand Prix racing, it was Stefano Domenicali who featured as a guest at the launch of the Red Bull-Ford partnership with the FIA president being completely ignored by the World Champion team.

Ben Sulayem’s comments about the evaluation of Formula One at 20 billion dollars also didn’t go down well with the Commercial Rights Holder and the teams and even the drivers were unhappy with the change he made to the International Sporting Code, seemingly to limit their freedom of speech in maters not linked to the sport, so there’s a feeling the Emirati was getting on too many battles for his own good and now has strategically retreated from Formula One to look after the many other areas that are of concern of the FIA.