Finally drawing a line under Abu Dhabi? Why F1 teams are backing new-look FIA

“Nikolas was chairing the last F1 Commission, we have a lot on the agenda, short-term and long-term. And what we need to try to achieve is to work with each other pragmatically.

“There are a lot of objectives that are aligned, and having the best possible robust regulation and policing, put on a great show and come up with a product for 2026 that allows that to continue.”

“Well, for once I agree with everything Toto said,” added Horner. “And yeah, I think it’s an evolution. And there’s some big topics that need to be dealt with, particularly 2026, where we just need to make sure that the engine world, the chassis world, and the products of what we want F1 to be all align and marry up.

“So there’s still enough time to do that. That needs to be a key priority over the over the coming months.”

Wolff and Horner have both had good reason to be frustrated with the FIA in recent years. Mercedes will never forget the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP, while last year Horner fought in vain to save Red Bull from a cost cap penalty.

The fact that they both now see positives in the new structure suggests that the FIA has put the right people in the right places at a critical time.

Why FIA stumbled in post-Charlie Whiting years

The organisation suffered badly when Charlie Whiting passed away four years ago. Whiting’s remit went way beyond his high-profile race director role, and he was hugely respected in the paddock by both teams and drivers.

His death was a wake-up call in the sense it that everyone realised that the FIA had come to rely too much on one person who wore multiple hats, and who carried so much information in his head on why the rulebook had developed in a certain way, for example.

Not that there weren’t earlier attempts to share the workload and prepare a line of succession. The FIA made two high profile hires from teams, Laurent Mekies on the sporting and safety side in 2014 and Marcin Budkowski with a more technical focus in 2015. They worked alongside Whiting and were expected to play key roles for the long-term.

However having decided that the FIA wasn’t the life they wanted both men soon went back to senior team jobs, with Ferrari and Renault respectively, having bolstered their respective CVs with a spell on the inside of the governing body.

That was a valuable lesson to the FIA, suggesting that the organisation thinks twice about hiring younger guys who might still harbour ambitions to find success with teams – better perhaps to focus on those with more experience and who are looking for a new challenge.

After Mekies left Whiting also handed potential new race directors from other series a chance by giving them time as his deputy, which is how Michael Masi emerged as his logical successor in 2019.

Abu Dhabi 2021 provided a further wake-up call for the FIA, and unfortunately it also proved the undoing of Masi and his deputy Scott Elkins.

Niels Wittich becomes permanent F1 race director

Two new race directors were hired last season, while race control veterans Herbie Blash and Colin Haywood were recalled in order help to steer the ship. Of the new guys Eduardo Freitas subsequently fell by the wayside, and Niels Wittich emerged as the permanent choice for the job.

There’s much more to the FIA’s F1 involvement than just the race director role, even if that’s the one that gets the attention of social media critics.

Ben Sulayem promised change, and having upset the teams at times last year with his hands-on approach, to his credit he helped to shape the system that has now emerged.

Nikolas Tombazis, FIA single-seater director

Crucially the key roles are filled with ex-team people who know the sport well and have the respect of the competitors. Tombazis had been increasingly involved in areas outside his direct technical remit – there is a lot of technical crossover with the financial regulations for example – and now has an overview of the whole sport.

An aerodynamicist by training, he worked with Ross Brawn at Benetton in the Michael Schumacher era before joining both men at Ferrari, where he was a key member of the “dream team.” After a brief spell at McLaren he returned to Ferrari until 2014. Having fallen foul of Maranello politics his last team role was at Manor before he became a consultant. In 2018 he took up a full-time role at the FIA.

The former Met policeman with a key F1 role

Nielsen, his key lieutenant on the sporting side, was the big change in the recent reshuffle. A former Met policeman he found his way into F1 with Lotus in the ’80s and then went via Tyrrell to become team manager at Benetton, where he worked with Tombazis and Brawn.

His busy CV saw him return to Tyrrell, then move to Harvey Postlethwaite’s aborted Honda project, on to Arrows, back to Enstone, and finally to Toro Rosso and Williams, always in a team manager or sporting director role.

Once again the ’90s Benetton connection surfaced when Brawn hired him as F1’s sporting director in the summer of 2017.

He played a key role in the organisation, notably in helping to steer the sport through the pandemic and in getting new replacement events up and running with little notice, while also helping to shape sporting regulation changes.

At the FIA his responsibilities have changed, but he’s still involved with the rules. He also has a brief to improve the efficiency of race control and integrate the remote operations centre, F1’s VAR, that Ben Sulayem has established in Geneva.

Tombazis’s former deputy Tim Goss has become Single-Seater Technical Director. Goss spent almost three decades at McLaren from 1990 in a variety of roles, latterly as technical director. However he started his career at Cosworth, and thus crucially given the 2026 reg changes he also has a good understanding of power units.

The final key member of the team is Financial Director Federico Lodi, the former Toro Rosso man who helped to shape the financial regs and has been leading the policing of them over the past couple of years.

New FIA structure is backed unanimously by F1 teams

It’s not just Wolff and Horner who have welcomed the new structure – all 10 team bosses have expressed their support.

“I think it’s very good to have more experience at the FIA, with Steve Nielsen coming and helping out on the sporting side,” says Alpine’s Otmar Szafnauer. “And I think that’ll be positive.

“We’re here in the second season of running these new cars, and a big part of the FIA focus will now be to work on the ‘26 regulations. And Nikolas will have a big role in that. So I think the changes the FIA have made are necessary to progress and move forward.”

“I’m happy where things are at with F1 and the FIA,” says McLaren’s Zak Brown. “We had a commission meeting that was very smooth, and everyone is a familiar face, even if they hopped the shirts that they’re wearing.

“So I think everyone’s very comfortable with working with everyone, the FIA, and everyone in F1, and it was a very smooth collaborative meeting, and I don’t see why that won’t continue on forward.”

With all the paddock veterans now employed by the FIA you’d have the basis of a pretty good F1 team

“I think the last years there was a lot to do for the FIA,” says Haas boss Guenther Steiner. “A new car, [another] new car in ’26. We had the last race in 2021, and it wasn’t successful. So a lot of things to clear up, and I think it’s a new start. It needs strong people.

“And I think we’re just getting ready. The sport is getting more and more difficult to manage for the FIA I think, because it’s getting more and more sophisticated. But I think they put a lot of effort into fixing it, so we can just wait and see that it all happens. And we need to support that.”

AlphaTauri’s Franz Tost, who employed Nielsen for a while as his sporting director, also sings his praises.

“These are very experienced people,” says the Austrian. “They understand F1. They know everything. And I was really happy when I read this news and heard that Steve is now very much involved over there. And it’s good for F1, it’s good for the FIA, it’s good for all of us.”

Heavyweight FIA team to steer F1’s future rules

The FIA organisation continues to expand to meet the needs of changing times – a look at its LinkedIn posts reveals regular appeals for new blood in a variety of roles.

There is also a group of technical people who were hired by Brawn to help shape the 2022 rules. They subsequently moved sideways from F1 to wear FIA hats in order to comply with the governance that ensures a separation of responsibilities.

It’s not just about Tombazis and Nielsen, and in fact if you add in all the paddock veterans now employed by the FIA you’d have the basis of a pretty good F1 team.

“It’s not the job of one person anymore,” says new Williams boss James Vowles. “You need a team behind you. And in fact below the names that you mentioned is more depth again, because it is complicated.

“And we are dealing with two rulesets, 2023 and 2026 in parallel, and they’re doing a very good job with that from everything I can tell, and Steve is going to bolster their knowledge and experience as well. And I think they’re doing the right thing.”