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As an F1 fan, the last couple of days has been amusing as the FIA has kicked up a storm involving Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and his wife Susie Wolff. It all started with the governing body's public statement informing that it was looking into the media speculation of information passing to a team principal from a FOM representative.
The media speculation here was about Business F1's report that claimed several team principals had complained about a conflict of interest between Toto's role as a team principal and Susie heading the F1 academy. The FIA statement has led to public statements from Mercedes and Susie, with both dismissing the allegations.
Toto Wolff's wife has even termed the accusations misogynistic in her statement and unfortunately, that was only the start of it all. Since then, the FIA has released a statement that the investigation was not a result of only the Business F1 report. It was a result of multiple teams reaching out to the governing body to look into the Mercedes team principal's possible conflict of interest.
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Since that revelation, in what was an orchestrated social media campaign, each of the nine teams put out a somewhat similarly worded statement that they had not reached out to the FIA. Through all of this, F1 fans have been spectators of the drama that has unfolded right in front of their eyes. What has been even more surprising to see is that in all of this is the unity of the teams.
Be it Mercedes arch-rivals Red Bull or Ferrari, or the customer teams of McLaren, Aston Martin, and Williams, or any other team, they've all come out in unison in what seems to be a power battle between the governing body FIA and the promoter Liberty Media.
As an F1 fan, even if we don't know the nitty-gritty of what is happening behind the scenes, it's safe to say that the FIA losing out might not be the best thing for the sport.
How did the F1 teams unite for Mercedes?
It's a very rare thing that all F1 teams unite, especially if they do it for a team like Mercedes. However, it is at this point that we have to interject and explain that the teams have not united for the German squad; far from it rather. This is nothing more than a power play that has been brewing for a while now.
All of this began with Mohammad ben Sulayem taking over and being someone whose approach has been a bit divergent from his predecessor Jean Todt. Sulayem has flexed his muscles whenever he has had the opportunity and quite often, he has tended to rub Liberty Media the wrong way.
The biggest step in all of this has to be the diverging ideology of having an 11th team on the grid. When it comes to FOM or the 10 other teams on the grid, there seems to be a consensus that the 11th team is just not what the sport needs. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and Red Bull's Christian Horner, amongst others, have been a vocal opposition.
Ben Sulayem, on the other hand, sanctioned a screening process that has seen Andretti clear all obstacles and prove to be eligible for joining the F1 grid. However, once again, there has been resistance from the teams on the grid, including Mercedes and FOM head Stefano Domenicali. With the American team's candidature still in limbo and the FIA's attempts to continue to wield the power, the governing body has not been on the good side of the teams for a while now.
This is where, when one questions how every team on the F1 grid was willing to put a front of solidarity for Mercedes, the answer could be narrowed down to what has recently happened with Andretti, a possible 11th team on the grid, which has seen unanimous opposition except it IndyCar associate McLaren.
Looking at the situation right now, something that began as an investigation into the conflict of interest between Mercedes boss Toto Wolff and Susie Wolff has morphed into an F1 versus FIA power battle. There have even been rumors of the Liberty media pondering over a split from the governing body soon.
While something like that might prove to a be massive undertaking even for Liberty in so many ways, one can't deny that right now, in the court of public opinion, FIA has been made to look sloppy, unprofessional, unorganized, and in all fairness, a tad too impulsive.
With every F1 team standing in solidarity with Mercedes and claiming that none of them approached the FIA, it leaves the governing body in a precarious position. Unless it has proof of any of the teams approaching the governing body, Mohammad ben Sulayem is going to look inefficient in the court of public opinion.
While all of this is fine, there's one issue with all of this that might need to be addressed. For the health of the sport, the balance of power must not tilt too much in favor of FOM and the FIA should not be transformed into a shell of itself, here's why.
Why a strong FIA is needed
As we said earlier, there's no denying that the FIA president has come out looking highly inefficient in his workings. There have been far too many cases of him being made to look almost incapable of managing his business. All of this is true.
Having said that, for the health of the sport, a strong governing body is needed because what we've seen in the last few seasons is a tilt from 'sport' to 'entertainment' from Liberty Media.
The number of races has continued to increase and even though the teams complain about it a little, they all fall in line because the profits increase. To add to it, the number of street circuits propping up on the F1 calendar has been something interesting to note, especially with them talking about the place of classic tracks like the one in Barcelona.
Finally, lest we forget, the underhanded dismissal of Andretti's bid to be an F1 team just doesn't go with the spirit of the sport. Formula 1 is as much a sport as it is a business. But with even Max Verstappen recently commenting about a lack of the 'sporting element' on many weekends, there needs to be an entity that provides a level of pushback.
Andretti's bid has been solely supported by the FIA and so has been the vocal nature of Mohammad ben Sulayem when it comes to the number of races in F1. Now, are all of these parts of a powerplay from him against the FOM? Probably it is.
But then one has to wonder how the 10 teams on the grid could make Formula 1 an exclusive sport where the teams on the grid will have the power to decide who could join the sport and who couldn't.
Too much power on either side is bad for F1 and what we can see right now is that in the battle between FIA and FOM, if the governing body somehow loses out, it can impact the future of the sport and the direction it could ultimately take.
