What we witnessed at the 2024 Qatar Grand Prix was one of the most embarrassing displays of race direction I’ve ever seen. After Alexander Albon’s wing mirror fell off, race director Rui Marques elected to leave it on the track, just before the circuit’s only overtaking spot. Predictably, the mirror was run over, leaving heaps of broken glass on the floor. Only after two drivers, Carlos Sainz and Lewis Hamilton, received punctures, was the decision made to call the safety car out. Not only would any viewer of the sport instantly call out a safety car to react to debris on the track, but any workplace with basic safety regulations would not allow glass on the floor. This is a universal principle of safety, spreading from supermarkets, to restaurants, to care homes. Such a flagrant disregard of safety should be universally condemned, yet the FIA doubled down the next day, insisting that they made the right decision by not neutralizing the race. This was despite everyone witnessing on live TV the possible consequences of them not doing so.[1] This speaks to a broader cultural problem embedded in the FIA.

Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the president of the FIA, has increasingly been moving the organisation in a dictatorial direction. In response to the drivers’ concerns that he was becoming too puritanical in policing swearing, he told the twenty best drivers in the world that their opinions were irrelevant. The man pulled a Rihanna, believing that the sport’s superstars should just shut up and drive. Additionally, the FIA has been subject to waves of firings in recent months, a wave which coincidently includes people who have investigated the president. In this long line of exits included previous F1 race director Niels Wittich, who hinted that the PR approved statement that he was amicably stepping down was a fiction. Rui Marques was promoted from his role as F2 race director to direct the last three races of the season. This is already a risky move, as surely the correct time to replace a race director would be during the off-season, when the new director would have time to prepare for the role. This risky move became potentially cataclysmic when Marques’ replacement as F2 race director, Janette Tan, was also fired before she was even given the chance to direct a race. This left Marques in the position to direct all the weekend’s races in Qatar, a situation which was due to end in error.

But still, the mistake which Rui Marques did make was an obvious one. If there is debris on the track, you find a way to remove it, which includes calling out a safety car or a virtual safety car if necessary. Whilst calling out a safety car can affect the results of the race, as drivers who have yet to pit gain an advantage on those who have already stopped, it should be a race director’s job to think about running the race in a safe manner first, not about which teams may be affected by the decisions made. This was supposed to be the lesson that the sport had learnt after 2021. Unfortunately, this lesson has not been processed and race directors need to start doing better. Though Rui Marques’ position as the individual to learn the lesson is unfortunately untenable.

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[1] It remains unclear if the punctures received by Sainz and Hamilton were a result of the debris from the broken mirror, but even if it is not the cause, it still remains a safety risk to keep debris on the side of the track.etter. Though Rui Marques’ position as the individual to learn the lesson is unfortunately untenable.