Toto Wolff has no intention of giving the FIA a free pass for its “damaging” handling of its short-lived investigation into his and wife Susie Wolff’s relationship within Formula 1, insisting “the bullet went out of the gun”.
Last month, the governing body announced out of the blue that its Compliance Department was examining an allegation of sensitive information being exchanged between an F1 team principal and a member of Formula One Management.
This was triggered by questionable allegations made by the publication BusinessF1 that singled out Toto and Susie Wolff.
However, two days later, in a swift about-face, the FIA declared that there was no ongoing inquiry into any individual in F1 regarding a potential conflict of interest issue.
Mercedes and Susie Wolff nevertheless reserved the right to take legal action against the FIA, with Wolff intending on holding the governing body accountable for its “misleading” and “unfounded” communication.
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Over a month later, speaking publicly for the first time on the controversial affair, Toto Wolff has reaffirmed his stance. The Mercedes boss made clear that the FIA has failed to uphold its own standards of fairness and due process, while the Wolff’s reputations have been damaged.
“We have millions of people watching us, we have to be examples for what we say and do,” he told The Daily Telegraph.
“The investigation – opened and closed in two days – has done a lot of damage, and it’s not what you expect from the F1 world in general.
“If we want to make the sport more and more professional, we have to try to bring transparency where there is none and set standards of the highest possible level. My position is this.
“I can’t speak for Susie but she is a fighter, she has a steely determination. This is not the first time she has faced difficulties, and she will go all the way in every court of law.
“If someone types Susie Wolff on the web today, the investigation comes up as the first news item: the bullet went out of the gun and cannot come back in.”
Amidst the controversy surrounding last month’s investigation, the FIA has also been facing a series of key departures among its top personnel.
The governing body recently announced the departure of two key figures: sporting director Steve Nielsen and technical director Tim Goss. These departures have raised concerns about the stability of the FIA's leadership and its ability to effectively govern Formula 1.
“I think the FIA has many important tasks as an institution, the first of which is to govern with ethics, transparency and integrity,” argued Wolff.
“This includes how you run the sport together with F1 and the teams, but also how the rules are set and controlled.
“In the end, we all have to share the same goal: to make F1 even bigger in the world. For that to happen you need stability.
“It is not a good thing when people of experience and quality leave. Steve Nielsen, who knows the sport from every angle, left, and that’s a bad blow.
“Then Tim Goss left, and in this way, Nicolas Tombazis loses a very good lieutenant. And still others have resigned.
“As teams, we cannot do anything about it: it is not up to us to decide how people manage their staff and their structure. But when all of a sudden such good people leave an organisation you create a vacuum, it’s clear.
“You have to ask yourself why so many have left and have done so now.”
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