Toto Wolff and his wife Susie are reportedly being investigated by the FIA.
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff and his wife Susie are reportedly being investigated by the FIA following complaints from rivals over an alleged conflict of interest. Susie has been the managing director of the F1 Academy series for female drivers, which is a subsidiary of Formula One Group, since being appointed to the role in March.
According to BusinessF1, some rival figures have complained to the FIA about what they see as a family dispute between Susie, an employee of Formula One Group, and Wolff, a team principal. According to reports, the figures in question are worried that Wolff might be able to obtain sensitive information through his wife that is not accessible to the other team principals.
Wolff is said to have known ahead of time about a topic that came up at a recent meeting between team principals, which is allegedly what started the complaints. There were rumors that some of the attendees concluded it could only have originated from someone inside Formula One Group, which sparked concerns about Wolff and his wife possibly exchanging information.
In response, it is reported that FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem requested that an inquiry be opened by the organization’s compliance department. Mercedes has been contacted by Express Sport for a statement.
In a statement on the subject on Tuesday, the FIA said: “The FIA is aware of media rumors centered on the claim that a member of the FOM staff gave confidential information to the principal of an F1 team. The issue is being investigated by the FIA compliance department.”
It happens a year after Shaila-Ann Rao, who once collaborated with Wolff, was accused by Mercedes of giving her private information while she was the FIA’s acting secretary-general. Before the news was officially announced, Mercedes implied that at least one team had violated financial regulations, which put her at the center of Red Bull’s budget cap controversy.
Ben Sulayem, however, was quick to refute the allegations, stating that Rao had, in fact, been urging the FIA to be more lenient in its punishment of Red Bull.
In November of last year, he said, “Shaila-Ann has supported me a lot; you can see her intelligence when it comes to making big decisions for me.” “She actually said that was a little harsh of me after the teams’ penalties were announced.
“My God, I said to her as I looked at her. She tells me I’m too hard on Red Bull and that someone is accusing her of siding with Mercedes. Even as we were still discussing something at our meeting in Austria, it had already made headlines.”
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