For fans new to Formula One – and there a lot of them at the moment – it can be an arcane beast at the best of times. If it is to avoid alienating this new blood then it really has to better consider the optics. The last couple of days have been perceived as shocking, confusing and almost absurd. Not a good look for what the former FIA president Jean Todt always referred to as the “pinnacle of motorsport”.
The bulk of these issues now lie squarely in the hands of Todt’s successor, Mohammed ben Sulayem, whose record thus far has been patchy at best, not least in the ineffectual inquiry into the controversy at Abu Dhabi last year.
