Formula 1 drivers are still waiting for FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s response to the open letter they addressed to him two weeks ago.
Max Verstappen, who clashed with the FIA after its stewards penalised him for swearing in a press conference in Singapore two months earlier, made it clear the drivers intend to keep pressing their case.
“We just wanted to send that letter out to make sure that everyone is aware of our concerns and what we want to work on and we’ll see what comes out of that,” he said.
“At the moment, of course, nothing has happened but I think there was a lot going on within the FIA anyway they had to deal with,” continued Verstappen. The FIA has lost both its F1 race director and, reportedly, compliance officer in the three weeks since the last grand prix.
“So we’ll see in the coming races, we’ll keep engaging, we’ll keep talking to them and just go from there,” Verstappen concluded.
George Russell, a director of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, who issued the letter, explained their grievances with the FIA in more detail. In their letter, the drivers urged Ben Sulayem to be transparent about how the governing body uses money raised from fines they pay.
Russell said they expected this would happen following his election at the end of 2021. “When we were hearing from the FIA a couple of years ago, when it came to the presidential elections, they were talking about transparency, talking about where the money is going to be reinvested into grassroots racing, which we’re all in favour of.”
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This year the FIA quadrupled the maximum fine drivers can be charged, setting it at €1 million (£833,000). “When it comes to some of these large fines, there’s a number of drivers on the grid who can comfortably afford these fines,” said Russell. “There’s maybe some rookies on the grid that if they’re handed a $1 million fine, you know, they can’t afford this.
“But if we know where that’s being sort of reinvested and if it’s going into grassroots or into some training programs, then we get it. As I said, we just want the transparency and understanding [which] was promised from the beginning.”
F1 drivers have taken similar action before, notably in 2016, before Russell arrived in the series. He said they believe raising objections internally has done their…
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