Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem “can fire as many people as he wants” as long as Formula 1 continues to improve.
Recent weeks have seen several key departures from the FIA, including but not limited to former F1 Race Director Niels Wittich, long-serving steward Tim Mayer and former Deputy Formula 2 Race Director Janette Tan.
George Russell has led vocal opposition towards Ben Sulayem’s governance, calling for greater transparency amid the hiring and firing at the FIA.
In response, the FIA President told Motorsport.com that these matters are “none of their business,” to which Wolff partly agrees with certain contingencies.
“I think he can fire as many people as he wants,” Wolf told select media including Motorsport Week following the Qatar Grand Prix.
“His organisation, he is the president. That’s not something that anybody has an involvement with.
“Where it becomes important for the drivers and for all of us, how does it make the decision-making process better? Does it make the regs better? Is the sport improving because of these changes in the organisation, the personnel?
“And the answer to all of this is yes, it’s doing that. This is an internal matter that he has to handle.”
‘Rationality needs to win’ for the good of F1, says Wolff.
While Wolff is right that Ben Sulayem is well within his rights to handle the FIA as he sees fit and that F1 is in a healthy place in the present day, the former mustn’t negatively impact the latter.
Wolff spoke words to a similar effect, as teams, drivers, commercial rights holders and the governing body must act in the best interest of F1.
What concerns Wolff is the lack of transparency behind the personnel changes at the FIA, which he questions the “rationality” of.
“Obviously, what’s in the news and the potential spillover in terms of negativity and reputation, that is something that is bad for all of us,” he said.
“All of us are the sport and all of the stakeholders, the media, the FIA, the drivers, the teams, I mean all of us.
“Liberty [Media], Stefano [Domenicali] running it, and I think we in times when there is so much polarisation, so much conflict, the rationality needs to win.
“And for me, it doesn’t look that way at the moment.”
Wolff quipped that if you look at the hiring and firing at the FIA “in a positive way it could have its own reality show of what’s happening.”
But again Wolff said that “all of us stakeholders need to bear in mind that we need to protect this sport.
“Doing it with Responsibility, accountability, transparency. And it doesn’t come across like that.”
Wolff added that it’s not his place to “look into the [FIA] organisation,” before noting “it’s good that the drivers are united in the bigger picture.
“Teams very much have an understanding of what we believe is right or wrong,” he said.
“And so everybody just needs to look in the mirror and say, ‘am I contributing the best to this sport? Or not?’”
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