The FIA’s Ethics Committee has cleared the governing body’s president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, of two counts of alleged interference in rounds of last year’s world championship.
The committee said it found “no evidence to substantiate allegations of interference,” according to multiple reports. Ben Sulayem was “cleared of any wrongdoing regarding allegations (i) to have interfered with the stewards’ decision to reverse an additional penalty on Car 14 (Fernando Alonso) following a challenge from the Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2023 and (ii) to have attempted to interfere with the track certification process for the Las Vegas Grand Prix 2023. The certification was completed and approved in due time.”
The announcement comes 16 days after the first allegation against Ben Sulayem came to light. He was accused of attempting to overturn a post-race penalty which dropped Alonso from third place to fourth in last year’s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The Aston Martin driver was originally penalised for failing to serve a five second time penalty correctly because his team had touched his car with a jack. Aston Martin submitted a request for the penalty to be reviewed which was accepted after the team showed other teams had avoided penalties for the same thing.
Ben Sulayem was also accused of instructing an FIA staff member to find grounds to prevent the certification of the new Las Vegas Strip Circuit which held its first round of the world championship last year. This claim was also rejected by the Ethics Committee.
The FIA’s Ethics Committee was a focus of attention in December last year, when it was briefly charged with investigating an alleged conflict of interests involving Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff and F1 Academy CEO Susie Wolff, who are married. The probe was called off after Mercedes’ rival F1 teams unanimously and publicly confirmed they had raised no concerns about the situation.
This article will be updated.
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