F1 will continue to rely on multiple race directors – Ben Sulayem

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem says Formula 1 will continue to operate with several race directors at its helm in the future as was the case in 2022.

The fallout from F1's race direction fiasco in Abu Dhabi in 2021 led to the demise of race director Michael Masi and to structural changes to the role which was eventually split between Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas.

But the FIA's rotation scheme hasn't received the full support of F1's field of drivers who believe that it has led to a lack of consistency in the decision process.

The events that marked the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka last October, when a crane was rolled out onto the live track, encouraged the FIA to entrust F1's race direction exclusively to Wittich for the final four races of the season.

But speaking to the media on Monday in Saudi Arabia during his visit to the Dakar Rally, Ben Sulayem made clear that F1's race weekends would continue to be managed by several race directors in the future, including Wittich, as the FIA feels that it would not be prudent to rely on a single individual.

"There is a process now and I have a team who is going through a proper process and training for stewarding, and for race directors," Ben Sulayem.

"You cannot just have one race director and rely on them. I see that we should prepare the second role. We cannot rely in the biggest discipline that we have, or any other discipline.

"What if something happened? If we are going to sustain motorsport, we have to be ready with training.

"I am a big believer that there is, somewhere in the world, better race directors than anyone, better stewards.

"Now we are reaching to the ASNs [National Sporting Authorities] and we are asking them to send us people for the training, and we have a proper team now for the training.

"You will get good [officials]. I promise this."

Read also:

• Ben Sulayem: FIA can't be a platform for 'private personal agenda'

Revisiting the start of his presidency at the end of 2021 and the FIA's decision to restructure F1's race direction, Ben Sulayem said that Masi's departure from F1 was not forced upon the Aussie by the governing body.

"It was also his choice," he said. "I’d been talking to him at the beginning. There were human errors there, and I felt that he also wanted to just not go further, because of what he got from the social media, the toxic social media.

"I spoke to him, and it was unfair also for him. The FIA was always supportive.

"This is the same thing that’s happening to Silvia [Bellot, an FIA steward that was targeted with online threats after the US Grand Prix], again to some of our members: threats.

"I got some threats also, to reverse the results, but I didn’t take them seriously.

"But now we stand against the toxic social media that will affect our sport. I am a big believer that if we don’t take a stand, we might find the damage will be beyond repair for our sport in the future."

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