Report: FIA boss Ben Sulayem under investigation

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem is reportedly underneath investigation by the organisation he leads after a whistleblower alleged he interfered with the results of final 12 months’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

In accordance with BBC Sport, a report has been submitted by an FIA compliance officer to the governing physique’s ethics committee that alleges Ben Sulayem intervened to overturn a penalty given to Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso.

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ESPN has contacted the FIA for touch upon the matter.

The investigation pertains to a 10-second penalty given to Alonso on the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix that originally dropped him from third place to fourth after the chequered flag however was overturned a number of hours later.

The penalty was issued after Alonso’s Aston Martin group was judged to have carried out work on his automobile as he served a separate five-second penalty for being out of place in his grid field at the beginning of the race.

The ten-second penalty was issued shortly after Alonso had acquired his third-place trophy on the rostrum and dropped him to fourth within the classification.

The explanation for penalty centred round video footage that confirmed the rear jack — certainly one of two gadgets used to hoist the automobile into the air at pit stops to vary tyres — touched the automobile earlier than the five-second penalty had been served.

The stewards initially deemed this to be a breach of a rule that states group members will not be allowed to start out work on the automobile till a time penalty has elapsed.

Aston Martin appealed the choice and was granted a proper to overview on the idea that there have been seven earlier examples of a jack touching a automobile whereas a penalty was being served that had not been penalised.

Within the early hours of the morning after the race, the identical stewards who had issued the unique 10-second penalty reversed their resolution and launched the ultimate race classification exhibiting Alonso again in third place.

A BBC report on Monday said {that a} whistleblower now alleges that Ben Sulayem known as Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, the FIA’s vice-president for sport for the Center East and North Africa area, and made it clear that he believed Alonso’s penalty must be revoked.

The BBC report added that the ethics committee is predicted to difficulty its report in 4 to 6 weeks.