Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur has blasted the FIA for how they dealt with the recent saga involving Toto Wolff and Susie Wolff, with the latter having faced allegations of giving the Mercedes team principal “confidential” information.
The FIA recently sent out a statement based on “media speculation” and a report from one publication, which had questioned if an “FOM personnel” had handed information to a team principal, something teams had reportedly complained to the FIA about.
Whilst not named specifically, the FIA revealed that they’d be investigating the matter; however, F1 nor Mercedes were informed about the statement being released.
It was clear that it was directed at the Mercedes boss and the F1 Academy managing director, resulting in statements by the Silver Arrows and F1 rejecting the allegations.
Want to work in Formula 1? Browse the latest F1 job vacancies
Both companies also expressed their support for Susie, who faced the bulk of the allegations.
She released her own statement where she hit out at the governing body for being misogynistic and questioning her integrity.
Incredibly, all the other nine teams in the paddock also released similar statements, where they stressed that they hadn’t complained to the FIA about the F1 Academy managing director, whom they fully supported.
A second statement was released by the FIA after all the F1 teams united against them, with the governing body having noted that no investigation would take place.
The saga has simply increased tensions between F1 and the FIA, to the point that Vasseur admits that the original story was “embarrassing for our sport” and was handled poorly.
“I think this story is quite embarrassing for our sport,” Vasseur said, as reported by Motorsport.com.
“The story started with an article in a newspaper, I don’t know if newspaper is the right word. And I think in this situation when you are speaking about an individual, you have to take care of what you are saying.
“I think it would have been appropriate from the FIA; they needed 24 hours between the [first] announcement and the second announcement. It would have made sense to use the 24 hours before the first announcement [to investigate], to avoid any bad conclusions.”
Despite the horror over how the FIA dealt with the allegations, something good did come out of it all, every team uniting.
READ: Christian Horner admits to losing to Max Verstappen’s mum
Vasseur was incredibly pleased to see this and pointed out that it was the “first time” it’d happened.
“After the ‘incident’ of last week at least the teams were very united,” Vasseur added. “The first conclusion for me is that we were able to act together and it’s not very often that even Red Bull was supportive of Toto!
“And honestly, I think it’s a good point for us also to take position and to discuss with the other stakeholders. I think it’s the first time the teams together showed something like this.”