Mohammed Ben Sulayem, president of Formula 1's governing
body, allegedly told officials not to certify the Las Vegas circuit for its
race last year.
The claim is from the same whistleblower who accused Ben
Sulayem of allegedly telling officials to overturn a penalty to Fernando Alonso
in Saudi Arabia last year.
The whistleblower says they were told "on behest of the
FIA president" to find a way not to pass the circuit safe for racing.
The claim is in a report by the FIA's compliance officer to its ethics committee.
An FIA spokesperson said: "From a sporting and safety
perspective, the Las Vegas circuit approval followed FIA protocol in terms of
inspection and certification.
"If you recall, there was a delay in the track being
made available for inspection due to ongoing local organiser construction
works."
The report quotes the whistleblower saying they were
contacted by their manager, "who on behest of the FIA president instructed
him to find some concerns to prevent the FIA from certifying the circuit before
the weekend of the race".
The compliance report quotes the whistleblower as saying
that "the purpose was to find fault with the track in order to withhold
the licence".
It adds: "Asked to be more specific, [the
whistleblower] said that issues on the circuit were meant to be artificially
identified regardless of their actual existence, with the ultimate goal of
withholding the licence."
The whistleblower said they tasked an official with
performing this task, and named two further officials who were in the room at
the time.
BBC Sport is not identifying the people named in the report.
The report adds that officials were "unable to find any
concerns with the circuit and therefore certified the circuit fit for the
race".
BBC Sport has learned that other officials present at the
time have a different recollection of the events from the whistleblower.
It is not clear why Ben Sulayem would wish for FIA officials
to refuse to certify the Las Vegas track.
The race was a poster event for F1, and commercial rights
holders Liberty Media had invested at least £500m in the event in the hope of
using it to promote the sport in the US and across the globe.
But the backdrop to Las Vegas, the penultimate race of last
season, was two years of tension between Liberty Media and the FIA, in which
Ben Sulayem on numerous occasions was keen to extract more money from F1 for
the FIA.
The contract between the two parties sees the commercial
rights holder pay the FIA about $40m a year to perform its duties in
legislating F1.
What happened to disrupt practice in Vegas?
Early on the first day of practice, Carlos Sainz's Ferrari
hit a drain that had become dislodged on the Las Vegas Strip, the centrepiece
of the track.
The incident destroyed his Ferrari's chassis and led to the
cancellation of the first practice session and a delay to the second one.
The session had been due to start ay midnight. Spectators
were sent home at 01:30, before the second session started. It eventually
started two and a half hours late and finished at 04:00.
The drain problems were caused by the underground frame
beneath the cover becoming cracked, possibly by the forces from cars or Sainz's
Ferrari hitting it.
The bolts attaching the cover to the drain were intact and
it was established no inspection would have found the problem before practice
started.
All grands prix are subject to an FIA report after the event
that identifies issues which arose and how they might be dealt with.
The compliance report is the latest in a series of
controversies surrounding Ben Sulaymen since he took office in December 2021.
Most recently, Ben Sulayem inserted himself into the
controversy surrounding Red Bull team principal 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 look
into the allegations of inappropriate behaviour against Horner, who has denied
the claims.
The 50-year-old was the subject of an internal Red Bull
inquiry. The company announced last week on the eve of first practice in
Bahrain that the complaint had been "dismissed".
According to Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, after Red Bull's
three-time champion Max Verstappen twice failed to give Horner unqualified
backing in a news conference in Bahrain, Ben Sulayem approached the Dutchman
and said he should publicly back his boss.
Verstappen, BBC Sport has been told, responded by saying Ben
Sulayem should launch his own inquiry into the matter.
On the same day, Ben Sulayem posted on Instagram a
photograph taken at the inauguration of the Bahrain track in 2004 of him
sitting next to Prince Andrew. The post has since been deleted.
And during the off-season, the FIA launched a compliance
inquiry into Mercedes team principal Wolff and his wife Susie on the basis of
claims in a magazine of a conflict of interest.
The inquiry was withdrawn after just two days, following
angry interventions from Mercedes, F1 and the other nine teams, who all said
they had not made a complaint.
Insiders say that he and/or the FIA may yet face legal
action over the intervention.
