Multiple race directors likely in 2025, says Ben Sulayem

FIA president, Mohammed ben Sulayem says that F1 will probably have multiple race directors this season.

The last couple of years has seen a fair amount of coming and going in terms of race directors, with Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas sharing the role in the aftermath of Michael Masi’s parting ways with the sport’s governing body following the controversy of Abu Dhabi 2021.

Freitas was subsequently dropped in the wake of the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix, while Wittich was fired without warning ahead of last year’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.

For the remaining races, F2 and F3 race director Rui Marques filled the role.

Speaking at the Summit of Sporting Stewards in Jarama, Ben Sulayem revealed that he is considering returning to the idea of multiple race directors.

“Who and how many is a question we will know soon, in the next few days,” he said, according to Marca. “But for sure there will be new blood and there will be more than one, that’s for sure.

“There have been people learning, there have been people working behind all the time,” he continued. “You can’t just throw somebody into this big challenge.

“The teams can complain, drivers can complain, but then they don’t want to pay for it. 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.”

Seemingly reflecting the current mood in some parts of the world, Ben Sulayem insists that the recruitment of race directors and directors will not be about meeting diversity quotas, but appointing the best people for the job.

“Is it about diversity? No, we talk about diversity and we say they say: ‘You bring this from this country or this woman or something’. That’s an insult.

“We don’t have women because we have to take 30 per cent, we take women on the basis of merit and credibility because they are good. We hire non-European people from other countries because they are good, they are trained, they have the passion to compete, not because I have to have this colour, this religion.

“Then you won’t have a good FIA, a strong FIA. You will have a weak one because you will not deliver what you promise. For us, it’s a big challenge.”

At a time it is feared the FIA president could be heading for a showdown with drivers and team bosses in terms of his increasing crack downs on discipline and behaviour, Ben Sulayem stressed the need for those within the sport to realise that they are role models.

“When I was driving rallies myself, there was a certain amount of discipline, something that is very important for everyone in the sport,” he said, according to De Telegraaf. “Drivers are ambassadors of the sport.

“After all, we don’t want parents of children to get the image that we are a ‘dirty’ sport that they don’t want to belong to.

“At every track, you have to deal with things that are allowed or not allowed,” he continued. “Drivers in Formula 1 earn millions and are not children, but adults. In their job, they have a responsibility to the FIA and to the public. They should respect the rules in a sport that has given them so much.”

It would appear that while continued convergence offers the promise of a hard-fought season on track, the FIA president’s increasingly tough stance offers the prospect of equally tough battles off-track.