'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD/2wCEAAMDAwMDAwQEBAQFBQUFBQcHBgYHBwsICQgJCAsRCwwLCwwLEQ8SDw4PEg8bFRMTFRsfGhkaHyYiIiYwLTA+PlQBAwMDAwMDBAQEBAUFBQUFBwcGBgcHCwgJCAkICxELDAsLDAsRDxIPDg8SDxsVExMVGx8aGRofJiIiJjAtMD4+VP/AABEIAAYACgMBIgACEQEDEQH/xABkAAEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAwcQAAAGAQQDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAgMEBSMGBzEyERMUAQEBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACBBEAAQQBBQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQACBBEDISIyQsL/2gAMAwEAAhEDEQA/AIbXwb9zRWjbND8R+js7aZGl1kglKPAn1pW2ZcHkGTWdN81lMYJDeKQ6jsZ9VGXPgABhEthY6J5eQq5TW3j2jVpuhXYr/9k='%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
FIA president Mohammad Ben Sulayem revealed that he will be stepping down from including himself directly in F1's day-to-day activities and will have no 'hands-on' involvement in any of the lower-level decision-making. The handling of such operations will now be overwatched by the FIA's single-seater director, Nikolas Tombazis.
Ben Sulayem made some major changes to the FIA upon his appointment as its president in December 2021. These changes also included having a CEO in the organization for the first time. An FIA spokesperson told Motorsport.com:
"The President’s manifesto clearly set out this plan before he was elected. It pledged ‘the appointment of an FIA CEO to provide an integrated and aligned operation,’ as well as to ‘introduce a revised governance framework’ under ‘a leadership team focused on transparency, democracy, and growth.’"
The single-seater department also saw a restructuring, ahead of which Tombazis, who will now have his hands over the lower-level operations in F1, was given a broader set of duties. At the same time, Steve Nielsen was appointed as the sporting director. The spokesperson further stated:
"These goals, as well as the announcement of the new structure of the Single-Seater Department, have been planned since the beginning of this Presidency."
FIA spokesperson calls Mohammed Ben Sulayem's move 'natural' after F1 reorganization
Mohammad Ben Sulayem was recently involved in a series of events that made it difficult to predict if he would remain the FIA's president in the upcoming seasons. At the same time, the FIA spokesperson stated that it was a 'natural move' that Sulayem made after the structural reorganization of F1, saying:
"The FIA President has a wide remit that covers the breadth of global motor sport and mobility, and now that the structural reorganisation in Formula 1 is complete this is a natural next step."
Ben Sulayem was at the center of many controversies that arose in F1 ahead of the 2023 season. The one that sparked it all up was him calling out an 'inflated' price tag for the sport and Liberty Media on Twitter.
Reportedly, a Saudi Arabian prince had offered $20 billion to buy Formula 1's rights, and Ben Sulayem called this out on Twitter stating that this was an inflated price and no such estimates should be made because it could affect the sport negatively.
Later, a statement from a 2001 website surfaced that reflected his apparent sexism, where he wrote that "women who think they are smarter than men, for they are not in truth." Although the FIA responded and stated that this comment did not reflect Sulayem's mentality, it did not help the situation the FIA president was put in.
