FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem talks with Red Bull's tea principal Christian Horner and driver Max Verstappen during testing at Bahrain on 11 March 2022. Picture: Mark Thompson/Getty Images
Mohammed Ben Sulayem has experienced a real baptism of fire since taking the helm of the governing body of world motorsport.
After his election for a four-year term, he became president of the FIA on 17 December 2021, ending the 12-year sojourn of Jean Todt.
Formula One ended that season on a contentious note following decisions made by FIA appointed officials at the Abu Dhabi finale which decided the championship.
Now Sulayem finds himself being challenged by F1 owners and most of the teams. Early this month he tweeted, via his personal Twitter account: “I have asked my FIA team to look at launching an Expressions of Interest process for prospective new teams for the FIA F1 World Championship”.
The motorsport boss was surprised at the response of many team principals. As most of you will know, Michael Andretti has attempted to enter F1, meeting the financial requirements and partnering with Cadillac to enter as an American F1 team with headquarters in the US, a support facility in the UK, plus one American driver.
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With the increasing popularity of the sport in the US and the introduction of Miami and the forthcoming Las Vegas race, it would seem to fit the bill perfectly. But, he failed to earn the acceptance of eight of the ten current F1 teams.
The F1 sports owners stated: “There is great interest in the F1 project at this time with a number of conversations continuing that are not as visible as others.
“We all want to ensure the championship remains credible and stable and any new entrant request will be assessed on criteria to meet those objectives by all the relevant stakeholders.”
Finally it added: “Any new entrant request requires the agreement of both F1 and the FIA”.
Not the most enthusiastic reply.
Ben Sulayem tweeted once more: ”It is surprising that there has been some adverse reaction to the Cadillac and Andretti news. The FIA has accepted the entries of smaller, successful organisations in recent years.
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“We should be encouraging prospective F1 entries from global manufacturers like GM and thoroughbred racers like Andretti and others.”
Nothing wrong with that reply I far as I am concerned, F1 needs to grow to survive and such steps with GM will surely go a long way to assisting Liberty Media’s expansionism goals.
The concern by teams apparently revolves around the prize money and the fact they would be reducing their annual share of the pot, hence the $200 million entry fee quoted to Andretti, some have already suggested raising this to $500 million.
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We have the FIA and F1 (Liberty Media) cited as the two to approve entries, but the issue of money has allowed team managers to become involved in the decision making.
We have already heard from Toto Wolff (Mercedes) and Mattia Binotto (ex-Ferrari) that prospective entries must meet criteria that satisfies all interested parties, but we have yet to learn the requirements of such criteria.
Following Ben Sulayem’s comments, are we perhaps facing the first skirmish in a fight with Liberty for overall supremacy and who is really the “governing body”?
The 2023 F1 season starts on 5 March in Bahrain.