The 61-year-old’s move comes after a series of controversies since he became president of governing body the FIA in December 2021. Ben Sulayem wrote that it had been his “stated objective to be a non-executive president via the recruitment of a team of professional managers”. Despite Ben Sulayem standing for election on the pledge of being a non-executive president, he has taken a direct, hands-on role in F1 for the past year. Ben Sulayem’s letter to teams said that from now on he would “focus on strategic matters with my leadership team”. Their “day-to-day contact for all matters on F1” would be the FIA director of single-seater racing Nikolas Tombazis, he said.

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