Mohammed Ben Sulayem: FIA president allegedly told officials not to certify Las Vegas GP

Mohammed Ben Sulayem, president of Formula 1’s governing body, allegedly told officials not to certify the Las Vegas circuit for its race last year.

The claim is from the same whistleblower who accused Ben Sulayem of allegedly telling officials to overturn a penalty to Fernando Alonso in Saudi Arabia last year.

The whistleblower says they were told “on behest of the FIA president” to find a way not to pass the circuit safe for racing.

The claim is in a report by the FIA’s compliance officer to its ethics committee.

BBC Sport has seen the report.

A FIA spokesperson said: “From a sporting and safety perspective, the Las Vegas circuit approval followed FIA protocol in terms of inspection and certification.

“If you recall, there was a delay in the track being made available for inspection due to ongoing local organiser construction works.”

The report quotes the whistleblower saying they were contacted by their manager, “who on behest of the FIA president instructed him to find some concerns to prevent the FIA from certifying the circuit before the weekend of the race”.

The compliance report quotes the whistleblower as saying that “the purpose was to find fault with the track in order to withhold the licence”.

It adds: “Asked to be more specific, [the whistleblower] said that issues on the circuit were meant to be artificially identified regardless of their actual existence, with the ultimate goal of withholding the licence.”

The whistleblower said they tasked an official with performing this task, and named two further officials who were in the room at the time.

BBC Sport is not identifying the people named in the report.

The report adds that officials were “unable to find any concerns with the circuit and therefore certified the circuit fit for the race”.

BBC Sport has learned that other officials present at the time have a different recollection of the events from the whistleblower.

It is not clear why Ben Sulayem would wish for FIA officials to refuse to certify the Las Vegas track.

The race was a poster event for F1, and commercial rights holders Liberty Media had invested at least £500m in the event in the hope of using it to promote the sport in the US and across the globe.

But the backdrop to Las Vegas, the penultimate race of last season, was two years of tension between Liberty Media and the FIA, in which Ben Sulayem on numerous occasions was keen to extract more money from F1 for the FIA.

The contract between the two parties sees the commercial rights holder pay the FIA about $40m a year to perform its duties in legislating F1.

A spokesperson for F1 declined to comment.

The FIA later issued a statement confirming its “Compliance Officer has received a report detailing potential allegations involving certain members of its governing bodies”.

It added: “The Compliance Department is assessing these concerns, as is common practice in these matters, to ensure that due process is meticulously followed.”