“We can’t buy race directors on Amazon,” Mohammed Ben Sulayem believes F1 race directors should be rigorously trained

“We can’t buy race directors on Amazon,” Mohammed Ben Sulayem believes F1 race directors should be rigorously trained

Mohammed Ben Sulayem

The 2022 F1 season saw change in many rules and regulations, and the biggest change was FIA replacing Michael Masi as race director. Just before the season started, FIA announced that they were introducing 2 new race directors and would be replacing Michael Masi due to events following in the Abu Dhabi GP 2021. Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas are sharing the role of race director for this season. The role sharing came into play so as to remove the pressure off of a single person’s shoulder as being a race director can get extremely stressful in some incidents. 

Watch: Who are F1’s new race directors?

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After the Monaco Grand Prix last week, race control was criticized greatly due to an extreme delay in the start of the race, which made the race chaotic, and also when the time on the clock was running after the race had been red flagged due to incidents on the track. The FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem responded to the same issues when drivers and teams were complaining about it; he said that it starts with his role, and the federation should be broad enough to allow the sport to grow without being tied to one person. 

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Also read: “I think it was well handled,” Andreas Seidl supports FIA’s decision making at the rain interrupted Monaco GP

“F1 Race directors have to be trained carefully and over years,” FIA President states

2022 Monaco Grand Prix
2022 Monaco Grand Prix

Mohd. Ben Sulayem notedly said, when asked about the race directors, that he cannot just buy them off of the Internet; “We have a great many tasks ahead of us. Formula 1 alone is a huge challenge. The GP drivers have asked me to take care of the Race Control issue. But I can’t very well search for new race directors on Google or buy them on Amazon. Race directors have to be trained carefully and over years,” PlanetF1 quoted him. 

Despite all of this, there has been a candidate who has been in talks, 34-year-old Ronnie Søgård Andersen, who recently won a Charlie Whiting Award after the completion of a “comprehensive test” that saw him show “knowledge and competency demonstrated at national and international level” on race directorship.

Also read: “We want more clarity and more consistency” : Carlos Sainz left enraged over five-figure fine by the FIA over blue-flag controversy in the Monaco GP

Also read: McLaren expects consistency from Lando Norris: “Too early to compare him to Michael Schumacher or Lewis Hamilton”