Tension between the president of the FIA, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, and the Formula 1 drivers is increasing. Now it has been the president who has attacked the actors of the big circus with acrimony: “Pilots earn hundreds of millions, do I ask them what they spend it on? No. Well, what we do is not your business either,” he said after the FIA gala in Kigali (Rwanda), where the trophies were presented to the motorsport champions.
Pilot reviews
The drivers complained that the FIA did not treat them like adults and imposed fines for using profanity
The conflict between the drivers and the FIA ignited on November 7, when the Formula 1 Drivers’ Association, the GPDA (Grand Prix Drivers Association, in its acronym in English), staged a kind of protest before the FIA for the policy of disapprovals and punishments that it applies to the pilots, whom it sanctions with fines for their swearing.
“We drivers are adults, we do not need to receive instructions through the media on matters as trivial as the use of jewelry and underpants,” the GPDA wrote in a statement, in which it questioned what the FIA used its money for. fines he imposed on them.
Sulayem’s replica
“The pilots talk and then say, ‘Where do you put the money? Why don’t we do this?’ Pilots earn more than $100 million. Should I ask you what you spend it on?”
After the FIA gala in Rwanda, the president of the FIA responded to the drivers’ request – expressed by the president of the GPDA, George Russell – to have a permanent sports commissioner in the races (now they are rotating and there is a lack consistency in decisions). “We are at a point in this sport where we need a full-time professional steward earning a real salary,” said the English Mercedes driver.
“It is a very nice speech. But when they say professional, and they want a professional, they don’t want to pay for it. That is evident,” replied the president of the FIA.
“The pilots talk and then say, ‘Where do you put the money? Why don’t we do this?’ Pilots earn more than $100 million. Do I ask you what you spend it on? No, it depends on them. They are within their rights. So it’s none of your business. We do what we do with our money. It’s our business. The same goes for them and their money. It is your business,” Ben Sulayem said.
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