FIA chief Mohammed ben Sulayem dismissed any suggestion of bias from colleagues over the investigation into Red Bull's cost cap breach.
The team went over budget during the 2021 season – the first year in which the regulations were enforced. It became a significant talking point for a few weeks late in this campaign, as their overspend was revealed and subsequently punished.
Red Bull were fined £6m and had 10% of their wind tunnel testing time over the next year taken away from them. The involvement of Shaila-Ann Rao in that process proved to be controversial in more ways than one.
Some fans suggested Rao would be keen to inflict a harsh blow on Red Bull, because of her past affiliation with Mercedes. And team boss Christian Horner was concerned about the leak of the accusations before the FIA announced them formally – something Helmut Marko also described as "strange".
But speaking in Abu Dhabi last weekend, FIA chief Ben Sulayem rubbished the idea that Rao's previous links to the Silver Arrows would affect her judgement. On the contrary, he claimed she had questioned if Red Bull's penalty might have been too harsh.
He said: "Shaila-Ann has been supportive a lot to me – you see her intelligence when it comes to setting big decisions for me. I'll be very honest with you, and I'll defend my opinion, but when it comes to Shaila-Ann, there were accusations that she is mainly a supporter of Mercedes.
"But actually, when the [cost cap] penalties were there with both teams [Red Bull and Aston Martin, who committed a procedural breach of the rules but did not overspend], she said 'that's a bit harsh for me'. I looked and said: 'My god, there is someone who is accusing her of being with Mercedes, and she's saying to me that it's harsh on Red Bull'."
Speaking about the leaks, Horner made it clear he and his team "expect [it] to be followed up". But Ben Sulayem appeared not to be concerned about how it had got out, and said it is not our of the ordinary for secrets in F1 to be revealed to the public by the press.
"On the leak, we were in Austria, we were having the F1 Commission meeting, and while we were talking about it, it was already in the news," he added. "It's frustrating sometimes, because before you've finished your meeting something has got out."
