Mercedes driver George Russell has called for transparency following a report alleging that the president of Formula 1\u2019s governing body intervened to overturn a penalty last season. Russell finished fourth behind Fernando Alonso in last year\u2019s Saudi Arabian Grand Prix but was briefly upgraded to third when Alonso was given a 10-second penalty because Aston Martin\u2019s pit crew touched the car with a jack while serving an earlier penalty. That ruling was later overturned.<\/p>\n
The BBC reported this week that FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem allegedly intervened to have the Alonso penalty overturned. The FIA said Tuesday that its compliance officer has received two complaints \u201cdetailing potential allegations involving certain members of its governing body\u201d in seeming reference to whistleblower claims against Ben Sulayem. F1 is racing in Saudi Arabia again this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to see all of the facts and just have total transparency, really. \u2026 We want a fair and level playing field for us to showcase what we can do,\u201d said Russell, who is also a director of the Grand Prix Drivers\u2019 Association, which represents F1 drivers in dealings with the FIA and other organizations. \u201cWe were surprised a year ago when the result got overturned,\u201d Russell said. \u201cThe legal team, Mercedes thought they did a great job of presenting our case and initially winning the case and then losing it thereafter. So we just want to see transparency and have that opportunity to race on a level, fair playing field.\u201d<\/p>\n
Russell also said it would be \u201cexciting\u201d if three-time champion Max Verstappen joined Mercedes as his teammate for 2025 when Lewis Hamilton leaves for Ferrari. Verstappen\u2019s current team, Red Bull, is in turmoil over the role of team principal Christian Horner, who remains in charge after the team\u2019s parent company last week dismissed a complaint of alleged misconduct by Horner toward a team employee.<\/p>\n
He has denied wrongdoing, but Verstappen\u2019s father, Jos, has criticized Horner\u2019s remaining with the team. \u201cI think any team wants to have the best driver lineup possible, and right now Max is the best driver on the grid, so if any team had a chance to sign Max, they would 100% be taking it,\u201d Russell said. \u201cSo I think the question is more on the other side, on his side and on Red Bull\u2019s side. Obviously there\u2019s so much going on there. We don\u2019t know what truly is going on behind closed doors, and ultimately it\u2019s none of our business right now. I guess it would be exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hamilton said he wouldn\u2019t be surprised to see Verstappen move to Mercedes. \u201cI know and I am sure Max is on the list,\u201d the seven-time champion said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say I am surprised that he is being considered. He is a great driver.\u201d Verstappen won the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix last week and favored to retain his title.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mercedes driver George Russell has called for transparency following a report alleging that the president of Formula 1\u2019s governing body\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":33286,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[7206,2811,10860,10857,10861,7078,10859,10858,10862,10863,4725,10012],"class_list":["post-33285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-f1","tag-fernando-alonso","tag-fia-president-mohammed-ben-sulayem","tag-george-russell","tag-max-verstappen-rumors","tag-mercedes","tag-overturned","tag-penalty","tag-red-bull","tag-team-principal-christian-horner","tag-transparency","tag-turmoil"],"reading_time":"3 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}