FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has revealed there will be more than one F1 race director this season.
Former F1 race director Niels Wittich was removed from his role towards the end of last season in a surprising move by the sport’s governing body.
Wittich’s replacement in the hot seat has not been confirmed but – following Johnny Herbert’s departure as a driver steward last month – Ben Sulayem has revealed that “new blood” will feature in FIA race control from the first race in Australia on 16 March.
Asked about who will be the next F1 race director, Ben Sulayem replied at a press conference in Spain: “Who and how many is a question we will know soon, in the next few days.
“But for sure there will be new blood and there will be more than one [race director]. That’s for sure.
“There have been people learning, there have been people working behind all the time. You can’t just throw somebody into this big challenge.”
McLaren CEO Zak Brown stated last month that his team would be willing to contribute towards paying for full-time FIA officials, yet Ben Sulayem insists that the 10 teams overall do not want to help fund a stewarding crew.
“The teams can complain, drivers can complain, but then they don’t want to pay for it,” Ben Sulayem added.
“I’m being very, very honest and straight with you, this takes a lot of investment. It has taken us more than two and a half years to get to what we are achieving now. Do we have the results? We will know the results when the season starts.
‘It is very important. What if the race director decides not to go or if he gets sick? It’s the same as the FIA. If something happens to me tomorrow, the FIA will continue to function without me, so this has to be a system. It’s not about individuals.
“There are a lot of mistakes and then you blame the FIA. It’s easy to blame the FIA. Why can’t you be productive in your criticism and say: ‘How can we find a solution?’
‘But where is the solution? The solution is in training, the solution is to bring people in.”
Wittich first served as joint F1 race director – the person in charge of enforcing FIA rules, safety cars and parc ferme regulations – with Eduardo Freitas in 2022, following the exit of Michael Masi after the controversial end to the 2021 season in Abu Dhabi.
Prior to Masi, Charlie Whiting held the position of F1 race director and was a highly respected figure for two decades from 1997-2019, before his sad passing prior to the 2019 Australian Grand Prix.
