New Scuderia Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur it is a positive aspect for FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem that the 2023 Formula 1 championship is about to begin. The French manager feels that the recent critical voices regarding the president of the governing body will quickly subside once the season starts, as the Bahrain Grand Prix is scheduled to take place on March 5, one week after the winter pre-season testing session.
Mohammed Ben Sulayem was heavily criticized following a series of events that Formula 1 bosses were not at all happy with. As a result, there has been intense speculation lately regarding the relations between Formula 1 and the FIA, that had allegedly cooled since the new president took office.
In the last few days, the rumours were fuelled by the comments made by Mohammed Ben Sulayem: the FIA president pointed out that he was in favour of the arrival of new potential Formula 1 teams and supported the Andretti project, even deciding to create a new procedure to help potential interested parties enter the sport. In addition to this, he questioned the value of Formula 1 following news that Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund considered an attempt to buy Formula 1 from Liberty Media for a price tag of “well over $20 billion”.
These statements did not go down well with Formula 1 and owner Liberty Media, who reacted and hit out at Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s remarks by sending a letter to the FIA. In the letter that Formula 1’s legal department sent to Ben Sulayem, they point out that it was wholly wrong of the FIA to be making such comments on commercial issues:
“The FIA has given unequivocal undertakings that it will not do anything to prejudice the ownership, management and/or exploitation of those rights. We consider that those comments, made from the FIA President’s official social media account, interfere with those rights in an unacceptable manner.”
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Soon after, The Times newspaper published some archived comments from an old Ben Sulayem website that were disparaging to females. Asked about things he did not like, the current FIA president replied that “women who think they are smarter than men, for they are not in truth.”
The FIA immediately reacted by releasing a statement informing that the old remarks do not represent Ben Sulayem’s views.
Despite the recent scandals and controversies, Ferrari boss Frederic Vasseur is confident that the disagreement will start to fade into the background as soon as the next Formula 1 championship begins a about one months: “For sure we’ll have discussions but, as always, I hope that we’ll be able to stay focused on the sporting side,” the Ferrari team principal said, according to Autosport.com.
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