[RahulNagaraj]

According to reports, FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem is under investigation, after a whistleblower reported that Sulayem allegedly tried to influence the results of the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Reports state that as per the whistleblower, Ben Sulayem allegedly tried to overturn a time penalty given to Fernando Alonso during that race. Alonso was given a 10-second time penalty when one of Aston Martin's pit crew touched his car while serving an unrelated 5-second penalty - something which is explicitly against the rules.



The whistleblower alleges that the FIA President expected the stewards to overturn their decision. The reports go on to claim that Ben Sulayem even called FIA's Vice President personally and told him the penalty should be revoked. Also, as per another report, several senior figures in F1 corroborated the information but chose to remain anonymous.

After the race, the 10-second penalty relegated Alonso from third to fourth position. However, a few hours later the FIA stewards rescinded the penalty, and Alonso was reinstated in third place. It now allegedly appears that Ben Sulayem could have pulled some strings in favour of Alonso. The report states that it is worth noting that Saudi Arabia's oil giant, Aramco, is a major sponsor of the Aston Martin F1 team.

The ethics committee of the FIA will reportedly take up to 6 weeks to issue its findings on the matter.

Source: BBC

Link to Team-BHP news

[FURY_44]

If only Merc had what it takes to appeal AD21. Good on Lewis to ditch them when they have let him done ever since.

[TallBoy]

I came across a very interesting article on the world of F1. I felt it was very well written. Apparently it was pulled down from roadandtrack.com within a few hours of being published.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240301...elvet-curtain/

[Red Liner]

Great. The one time When common sense ruled over the useless steward decision about that penalty and we get this.

F1 has seriously become a clown show.

[Joeboy]

Lewis should have won the 2021 WC instead of Max had FIA followed the safety car rules strictly in the last race. Can we say that FIA fixed the race so that Max could win. I am also Maxs' fan but I really feel that Lewis was the real winner. It was very clear that the race would end behind the safety car and so Lewis should have won. It has become a joke regarding the implementation of penalties by the stewards in races nowadays.

[dmplog]

Originally Posted by TallBoy

I came across a very interesting article on the world of F1. I felt it was very well written. Apparently it was pulled down from roadandtrack.com within a few hours of being published.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240301...elvet-curtain/

Thanks for sharing, very interesting indeed. Coming from a journalist of a completely different sport (or domain ) can provide so much different perspective, don't you think? In any case, F1 Paddock experience got to for those ultra ultra rich or key sponsors and there can't be anything less than glitzy!

[TallBoy]

Indeed its a very different take on the F1 world. I was led to this archive from an article on WaPo.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style...k-kate-wagner/

Originally Posted by dmplog

Coming from a journalist of a completely different sport (or domain ) can provide so much different perspective, don't you think?