- By Andrew Benson
- Chief F1 writer
1 hour ago
Image source: Getty Images
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The Las Vegas Grand Prix takes place on a temporary street circuit that includes parts of the Las Vegas Strip.
Mohammed Ben Sulayem, president of the Formula 1 governing body, is said to have told those responsible last year not to approve the Las Vegas circuit for their race.
The whistleblower says they were told “at the behest of the FIA president” to find a way to avoid passing the circuit safely.
The claim is contained in a report from the FIA's compliance officer to its ethics committee.
BBC Sport has seen the report.
An FIA spokesman said: “From a sporting and safety perspective, the approval of the Las Vegas circuit followed FIA protocol in terms of inspection and certification.”
“If you recall, due to the local organizer’s ongoing construction work, there was a delay in making the track available for inspection.”
The report quotes the whistleblower as saying that they were contacted by their manager “who, at the behest of the FIA President, instructed him to investigate some concerns in order to prevent the FIA from certifying the circuit before the race weekend “.
In the compliance report, the whistleblower is quoted as saying: “The purpose was to find faults with the track in order to revoke the license.”
It adds: “For more specific information, [the whistleblower] said that problems on the circuit, regardless of their actual existence, should be identified artificially, with the ultimate goal of withholding the license.
The whistleblower said they assigned an officer to carry out the task and named two other officers who were in the room at the time.
BBC Sport is not identifying those named in the report.
The report adds that officials “did not identify any concerns with the circuit and therefore certified the circuit as suitable for racing.”
BBC Sport has learned that other officials present at the time have a different recollection of the events than the whistleblower.
It is not clear why Ben Sulayem would want FIA officials to refuse to certify the Las Vegas track.
The race was a flagship event for Formula One and commercial rights holder Liberty Media had invested at least £500 million into the event in the hope of promoting the sport in the US and around the world.
But the backdrop for Las Vegas, last season's penultimate race, was two years of tension between Liberty Media and the FIA, during which Ben Sulayem was repeatedly interested in getting more money out of Formula 1 for the FIA.
The contract between the two parties stipulates that the commercial rights holder will pay the FIA approximately $40 million per year to fulfill its Formula 1 legislative duties.
A Formula 1 spokesman declined to comment.
What disrupted training in Vegas?
Early on the first day of training, Carlos Sainz's Ferrari got into a loose drain on the Las Vegas Strip, the heart of the track.
The incident destroyed the chassis of his Ferrari and led to the cancellation of the first practice session and a delay to the second.
The meeting was scheduled to begin at midnight. Viewers were sent home at 1:30 a.m. before the second session began. It ended up starting two and a half hours late and ending at 4:00 a.m.
The drainage problems were caused by the underground frame beneath the cover cracking, possibly from the forces of cars or the impact of Sainz's Ferrari.
The screws securing the cover to the drain were intact and it was determined that no inspection before training began would have identified the problem.
For all Grands Prix, an FIA report is prepared after the event detailing the problems encountered and how they were resolved.
The context of this situation
The compliance report is the latest in a series of controversies surrounding Ben Sulaymen since he took office in December 2021.
Ben Sulayem recently intervened in the controversy surrounding Red Bull team boss Christian Horner.
During last weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix, the FIA was under pressure from Mercedes and McLaren F1 bosses Toto Wolff and Zak Brown to investigate allegations of inappropriate behavior against Horner, who has denied the claims.
The 50-year-old was the subject of an internal Red Bull investigation. The company announced last week on the eve of the first training session in Bahrain that the complaint had been “dismissed”.
According to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, Ben Sulayem reached out to the Dutchman and told him to publicly support his boss after Red Bull's three-time champion Max Verstappen twice failed to fully support Horner in a press conference in Bahrain.
As BBC Sport has learned, Verstappen responded by saying Ben Sulayem should launch his own investigation into the matter.
On the same day, Ben Sulayem posted on Instagram a photo taken at the inauguration of the Bahrain circuit in 2004, in which he sits next to Prince Andrew. The post has since been deleted.
And in the offseason, the FIA launched a compliance investigation into Mercedes team boss Wolff and his wife Susie based on claims in a magazine about a conflict of interest.
The investigation was withdrawn after just two days after Mercedes, Formula One and the other nine teams reacted angrily, all saying they had not lodged a complaint.
Insiders say he and/or the FIA may still face legal action over the intervention.
