Mohammed Ben Sulayem: FIA president allegedly told officials not to certify Las Vegas GP
- Published
The Las Vegas Grand Prix takes place on a temporary street circuit that includes parts of the Las Vegas Strip.
Mohammed Ben Sulayem, president of Formula 1's governing body, allegedly told officials not to certify the Las Vegas circuit for its race last year.
The claim is from the same whistleblower who accused Ben Sulayem of allegedly telling officials to overturn a penalty to Fernando Alonso in Saudi Arabia last year.
The whistleblower says they were told "on behest of the FIA president" to find a way not to pass the circuit safe for racing.
The claim is in a report by the FIA's compliance officer to its ethics committee.
BBC Sport has seen the report.
A FIA spokesperson said: "From a sporting and safety perspective, the Las Vegas circuit approval followed FIA protocol in terms of inspection and certification.
"If you recall, there was a delay in the track being made available for inspection due to ongoing local organiser construction works."
The report quotes the whistleblower saying they were contacted by their manager, "who on behest of the FIA president instructed him to find some concerns to prevent the FIA from certifying the circuit before the weekend of the race".
The compliance report quotes the whistleblower as saying that "the purpose was to find fault with the track in order to withhold the licence".
It adds: "Asked to be more specific, [the whistleblower] said that issues on the circuit were meant to be artificially identified regardless of their actual existence, with the ultimate goal of withholding the licence."
The whistleblower said they tasked an official with performing this task, and named two further officials who were in the room at the time.
BBC Sport is not identifying the people named in the report.
The report adds that officials were "unable to find any concerns with the circuit and therefore certified the circuit fit for the race".
BBC Sport has learned that other officials present at the time have a different recollection of the events from the whistleblower.
It is not clear why Ben Sulayem would wish for FIA officials to refuse to certify the Las Vegas track.
The race was a poster event for F1, and commercial rights holders Liberty Media had invested at least £500m in the event in the hope of using it to promote the sport in the US and across the globe.
But the backdrop to Las Vegas, the penultimate race of last season, was two years of tension between Liberty Media and the FIA, in which Ben Sulayem on numerous occasions was keen to extract more money from F1 for the FIA.
The contract between the two parties sees the commercial rights holder pay the FIA about $40m a year to perform its duties in legislating F1.
A spokesperson for F1 declined to comment.
The FIA later issued a statement confirming its "Compliance Officer has received a report detailing potential allegations involving certain members of its governing bodies".
It added: "The Compliance Department is assessing these concerns, as is common practice in these matters, to ensure that due process is meticulously followed."
What happened to disrupt practice in Vegas?
Early on the first day of practice, Carlos Sainz's Ferrari hit a drain that had become dislodged on the Las Vegas Strip, the centrepiece of the track.
The incident destroyed his Ferrari's chassis and led to the cancellation of the first practice session and a delay to the second one.
The session had been due to start ay midnight. Spectators were sent home at 01:30, before the second session started. It eventually started two and a half hours late and finished at 04:00.
The drain problems were caused by the underground frame beneath the cover becoming cracked, possibly by the forces from cars or Sainz's Ferrari hitting it.
The bolts attaching the cover to the drain were intact and it was established no inspection would have found the problem before practice started.
All grands prix are subject to an FIA report after the event that identifies issues which arose and how they might be dealt with.
The context to this situation
The compliance report is the latest in a series of controversies surrounding Ben Sulaymen since he took office in December 2021.
Most recently, Ben Sulayem inserted himself into the controversy surrounding Red Bull team principal Christian Horner.
During last weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix, the FIA was under pressure from Mercedes and McLaren F1 bosses Toto Wolff and Zak Brown to look into the allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Horner, who has denied the claims.
The 50-year-old was the subject of an internal Red Bull inquiry. The company announced last week on the eve of first practice in Bahrain that the complaint had been "dismissed".
According to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, after Red Bull's three-time champion Max Verstappen twice failed to give Horner unqualified backing in a news conference in Bahrain, Ben Sulayem approached the Dutchman and said he should publicly back his boss.
Verstappen, BBC Sport has been told, responded by saying Ben Sulayem should launch his own inquiry into the matter.
On the same day, Ben Sulayem posted on Instagram a photograph taken at the inauguration of the Bahrain track in 2004 of him sitting next to Prince Andrew. The post has since been deleted.
And during the off-season, the FIA launched a compliance inquiry into Mercedes team principal Wolff and his wife Susie on the basis of claims in a magazine of a conflict of interest.
The inquiry was withdrawn after just two days, following angry interventions from Mercedes, F1 and the other nine teams, who all said they had not made a complaint.
Insiders say that he and/or the FIA may yet face legal action over the intervention.
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