Perhaps any sporting governing body is appreciated best when seen and not heard, the quiet hand steering the ship to the approval of participants and fans alike, but discontent, criticism, public grievances and open avowals of a lack of confidence clearly spell trouble. In Formula One this week the latter have swept across the paddock with calamitous abandon – F1’s regulator, the FIA, appears very much to have lost the dressing room.
Heading into this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, the FIA might have believed that a relatively straightforward weekend in the Melbourne sunshine was on the cards. It possibly anticipated that the announcement exonerating its president Mohammed Ben Sulayem for allegedly interfering in two grands prix but without giving any details of said investigation, its findings or conclusions would be subsumed by the controversy surrounding Christian Horner and Red Bull.
