Mohammed Ben Sulayem to step back from day-to-day F1 duties as FIA president ahead of 2023 season

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has revealed he will step back from day-to-day duties in Formula 1.

Nikolas Tombazis, the FIA’s director of single-seater racing, will now be the point of contact for F1’s 10 teams.

“My stated objective was to be a non-executive president via the recruitment of a team of professional managers, which has now been largely completed,” read Sulayem’s letter to the teams.

“Therefore, going forward, your day-to-day contact for all matters on F1 will be with Nikolas and his team, while I will focus on strategic matters with my leadership team.”

Before becoming FIA president at the end of 2021, Sulayem stated he wanted to give the day-to-day roles to someone else as part of a restructure.

It’s not clear whether this move is part of that plan or if it’s a reaction to the latest off-track politics in F1.

An FIA spokesperson told the BBC: “The president’s manifesto clearly set out this plan before he was elected – it pledged ‘the appointment of an FIA CEO to provide an integrated and aligned operation,’ as well as to ‘introduce a revised governance framework’ under ‘a leadership team focused on transparency, democracy, and growth’.

“These goals, as well as the announcement of the new structure of the single-seater department, have been planned since the beginning of this presidency.

“The FIA president has a wide remit that covers the breadth of global motor sport and mobility, and now that the structural reorganisation in Formula 1 is complete, this is a natural next step.”

The 2023 Formula 1 season begins with the Bahrain Grand Prix from March 3-5.