Why FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem keeps coming under fire

Susie Wolff has opened an attack on the FIA, but it is mostly yet another attack on Mohammed Ben Sulayem. Things remain unsettled around the FIA president, who has little support from F1 teams.

Prior to the 2023 Formula One season, the FIA announced that the president would take a backwards step from direct involvement. Ben Sulayem had been in the news negatively due to misogynistic statements. The FIA decided that the president would be less prominent. That was the message; the effect was quite different.

In the past year, Ben Sulayem has appeared at every Grand Prix and, much to the annoyance of several F1 teams, interfered in matters over which he has no say. The teams and F1 were particularly irritated by Sulayem's open criticism in the Andretti case.

Sulayem argues with the Wolff family

Last month, the FIA also conducted an internal investigation into Sulayem, who was suspected of influencing the outcome of the 2023 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix and interfering with the granting of a licence to the Las Vegas circuit. The FIA's conduct committee cleared Sulayem.

However, calm has not returned. Within hours, Susie Wolff opened the next attack. She thinks "some persons" within the FIA should take responsibility after the statement about her and Toto Wolff. The FIA investigated the pair in December 2023 because of alleged conflicts of interest.

To this day, Mercedes is outraged that the FIA investigated the pair based on an article in BusinessF1 and publicly released a statement about it. When all F1 teams and F1 itself backed the couple, the FIA backed down and stopped the investigation. Apologies did not come forward.

GPblog has learned that several F1 teams suspect that Sulayem played a major role in that investigation into the Wolff family. Sulayem and Toto Wolff had been living at odds for some time, and when the FIA president faced the BusinessF1 piece, he personally pushed through the investigation. With dire consequences. Susie Wolff, therefore, seems to be clearly pointing at the FIA president in her statement.

The French court must determine to what extent Susie is right, but it is clear that the battle between the FIA on one side and F1 and F1 teams on the other, will continue into 2024.