Formula 1 veteran Steve Nielsen has taken a new role with governing body the FIA with the aim of fixing the sport’s race-management problems.
Nielsen has left a senior F1 position to become FIA sporting director.
The 58-year-old Briton will oversee race-control operations, which have been at the centre of a series of controversies in recent years.
Nikolas Tombazis, formerly FIA single-seater technical director, has been promoted to single-seater director.
In a new management structure announced by the FIA, Tombazis has been given a new position that puts him in overall charge of the FIA’s F1 operations under president Mohammed Ben Sulayem.
Former McLaren technical director Tim Goss becomes FIA technical director, moving up from deputy.
Nielsen has been sporting director for commercial rights holder F1 since 2017, under former managing director Ross Brawn, and before that had a long career as sporting director for a series of teams.
Nielsen’s move comes with the blessing of F1, which believes he is the right man to fix issues that have been the subject of concern within the sport for some time.
Ben Sulayem said: “We have dedicated a lot of time and effort to making significant, informed changes to our F1 team to create the right structure with the right people to oversee the future regulation of the sport.
“By developing and empowering people within our organisation, as well as bringing in expertise and experience from the outside, I am confident that we are in the best position possible to move forward together with our partners at F1 management and the F1 teams.”
F1 president Stefano Domenicali said: “I want to thank Steve Nielsen for his hard work and dedication over the past five years at Formula 1.
“He is a highly respected professional in our sport, and we fully support his move to the FIA. His skills and experience in Formula 1 will assist the FIA in its ongoing efforts to improve their operations during race weekends.”
Teams back Nielsen move
The move to employ Nielsen to oversee race operations has widespread support among the F1 teams.
McLaren Racing chief executive officer Zak Brown told BBC Sport: “Steve is immensely respected, very well known and has a relationship with everyone in the pit lane.
“In roles like that, do they have the technical skillset? Yes. Do they have the credibility and relationships? Yes. So he ticks the boxes where I don’t think a single team will be questioning the decision and the rationale.”
Nielsen has twice before turned down a similar role, after Charlie Whiting’s death and following the sacking of former race director Michael Masi, after the Australian mishandled the title-deciding Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2021.
Nielsen’s decision to accept this time is founded in his belief that it is in the wider interests of F1. He has long recognised the problems in race control and believes he can make a real difference in resolving them.
Haas team principal Guenther Steiner said: “It’s fantastic that F1 made him available because he has been in F1 so long, so he knows a lot of history of what happened in different situations.
“That is the biggest thing that some of the people who came in missed – the history of the last 20 years. It is very difficult to teach.
“The guys who are doing it are not bad people, but they just don’t have the experience. If you try to learn 30 years of history of rule-making, that takes a few years and we expect these guys to go in the seat and make the right decisions.
“They don’t know what they don’t know, while Steve knows a lot of stuff, what happened when. It’s better to have this not to create controversies.”
What has led to this move?
The FIA sacked Masi last year as a result of his failure to apply the rules correctly during a late safety car period in Abu Dhabi.
His actions led to the championship changing hands from Lewis Hamilton to Max Verstappen.
The FIA instigated a series of changes to race direction following the controversy, but errors from race control continued throughout last season, to the frustration of drivers and teams.
These mistakes peaked at the Japanese GP, when a recovery vehicle was sent out on track in conditions of heavy rain and low visibility, reviving memories of the death of Jules Bianchi in the same race eight years before.
The errors included mismanagement of the start procedure at the Monaco GP; a failure to re-start the Italian GP, leading to the race ending under a safety car; confusion over the points system and whether Max Verstappen had clinched the title at the Japanese GP; and a series of incidents in which drivers raised questions about the FIA’s handling of safety matters.
Part of Nielsen’s new role will be to oversee the race directors and guide them in difficult circumstances.
Why is Nielsen needed?
The FIA has never fully replaced their former F1 director Whiting since he died on the eve of the 2019 season.
As FIA F1 director, Whiting oversaw all technical and sporting matters within the sport and also acted as race director and official starter. It was recognised at the time that Whiting’s role was too big for one man and that his responsibilities needed to split up.
Tombazis’ new role is an echo of Whiting’s former position as F1 director, but within a structure that offers more support.
Nielsen, an expert in the rules governing the sporting side of F1, spent more than a decade at the team now known as Alpine, spanning their various iterations as Benetton, Renault and then Lotus.
In a 30-year career, he has also performed the role for Red Bull’s second team Toro Rosso and Williams, and the now-defunct Tyrrell and Arrows teams.
He has retained a central role in sporting matters following his move to F1 under managing director Brawn after it was taken over by US company Liberty Media in 2017.
