FIA creates new department to solve motorsport problem

The FIA has announced the creation of a new 'Officials Department' which intends to produce a greater volume of qualified and suitable race officials. 

The new department will be in operation from the 2025 season and overseen by Italian Matteo Perini, and it "will support the recruitment of officiating talent, empower officials at a regional level, improve efficiency, and be a cohesive operational process," according to a statement.

It is hoped that the new structure will aid the FIA in understanding where best to place support, with the body currently having just over 300,000 formal officials, marshals and volunteers covering all FIA-sanctioned events around the globe.

"Our sport would not exist without the dedication of our officials, who are committed to ensuring every level of motorsport competition takes place in a safe, fair, and regulated way," explained president Mohammed Ben Sulayem. 

"This new department will ensure greater efficiency in their appointments, will allow us to discover and nurture officiating talent, and will provide a centralised approach to their management. 

"I am delighted to see FIA officials increasingly coming from different backgrounds, with the recent Regional Stewards programme attendees representing this via 42% female attendance and an average age of 37.5 years old."

Race directors

In F1, since the death of Charlie Whiting in 2019, the race director role has come under scrutiny in particular. 

Whiting was replaced by Michael Masi, who himself was removed from the position after the investigation into the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, with the role then being split between Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas. 

Wittich and Freitas rotated duties from weekend to weekend, but there were some inconsistencies in their different approaches, with Wittich ultimately taking over full-time after the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix.

The issue of qualified and well-versed race directors was something Ben Sulayem picked up on

"If you look at our officials and race directors: we have an issue and the issue is that we don't have [enough] race directors," he told Motorsport.com.

"So can you just simply go and order them? No. I said it in one of my tweets. I said: 'You cannot order them on Amazon or Google.'

"No, you have to make them, you have to train them."