Janette Tan and Tim Mayer are out at the FIA.
Following the dismissal of F1 Race Director Niels Wittich, former F2/F3 Race Director Rui Marques had inherited the role.
This news was divlied to us over a week ago. Since then, many more staff members under the FIA have been released.
The two most notable members of staff include newly appointed F2 race director Janette Tan and long-serving FIA race steward Tim Mayer.
Race Director roulette
Tan had inherited the role from Marques after his promotion. She was to make her first appearance as race director in Qatar for the upcoming F2 race. However, her departure was confirmed just a day before the event.
Her sudden dismissal came as a shock for everyone, especially since Tan was Marques’ deputy race director and was set to be his successor.
The original plan was for her to step in for the remaining two F2 races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi. She was also most likely to permanently step up into the role full-time next season.
It is understood that FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem had let her go, however no official statements on the reasoning has been released.
This is bad news for current F1 race director Marques. He would now have to take on the responsibility of both his current and previous roles in Qatar.
This intensified weekend schedule means no break for Marques as he enters the third race of a four race stint. As he was also the race director for the Macau Grand Prix prior to the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Thankfully the demands and workload of the race director is a lot lesser now with more support.
Marques won’t be working alone as not only will there be a four-man team on site, there will also be technical and IT staff to support him.
This will make the task of track limit detection and stewarding matters much easier.
The FIA is also reportedly increasing their Remote Operation staff. This means another four to six remote staff with live support throughout the weekend.
Long-time serving staff
Another senior member of staff who has been let go in recent days is Tim Mayer, the son of McLaren founder Teddy Mayer.
He has been with the FIA for 15 years as a FIA race steward and was an FIA delegate in the United States.
Again, there has been no official statement regarding the reasons for his discharge. However, it has been understood that there has been tension between Mayer and Ben Sulayem over track invasion at the United States Grand Prix.
Tim Mayer sat down with BBC Sport after his departure to discuss the situation with Tan and himself.
He commented on Tan’s dismissal saying: “She is the epitome of the type of person we want working for the FIA, the best of the next generation of race directors.
“I don’t know the circumstances, but one would think they would work very hard to keep someone of her character.”
Marques’ increased workload was another topic Mayer commented on. He explained how Marques ended up with his newly intensified schedule, stating how the FIA lacked “’platinum-level’ FIA race directors”.
“I know how hard both of those jobs are,” Mayer said. “I like Rui a lot, but it will put him under incredible pressure.
“There aren’t a lot of ‘platinum-level’ FIA race directors, which is the FIA’s highest level certification. I’m one of them. It’s a lot of work and, if you are doing the job right, you wake up every day with an ulcer thinking of all the various things you need to be thinking about.
“They’re not doing themselves any favours. They are literally running out of people to do those jobs.”
Tensions
Mayer also shared that he was fired via text by one of Ben Sulayem’s assistants on Tuesday. He commented on this saying: “For a federation that relies on volunteers to fire by text somebody who has made a significant contribution does not speak well of the management of the federation.”
Mayer also confirmed that the reason for his dismissal was due to an appeal document filed by COTA.
He has represented the circuit in a “right of review” hearing in appeal of his role as a sporting organiser for US based races. The appeal was against a decision of a 500,000 euros with 350,000 euros suspended.
This was for a track invasion at the end of the race on the 20 October. Mayer believed that Ben Sulayem felt that the appeal was personal against him.
“The official reason that will be given is they felt there was a conflict of interest with the FIA as I had led the right of review in my role as organiser,” Mayer said.
“But that is not why I was fired. Being an organiser is a role that I have fulfilled, benefiting the FIA, for over 12 years. This isn’t new.
“In spite of the matter being resolved quietly and amicably, he’s still upset and decided to fire me. After 15 years of volunteering my time as a steward, a decade teaching other stewards and hundreds of hours volunteering in other roles, I got a text from one of his assistants.
“In the process, there were hurt feelings on behalf of the president, which I think is odd because there was no cause for his feelings to be hurt when everyone else dealt with this in a professional manner.”
Who else?
Tan and Mayer are only some of the many staff that were dropped by the FIA.
This major retrenchment of staff has been going on even before Wittich’s own departure earlier this month.
The list of staff includes but is not exclusive to: director of communications Luke Skipper and secretary general of mobility Jacob Bangsggard.
Sporting Director Steve Nielsen and single-seater technical director Tim Goss had both resigned late last year. FIA’s first CEO Natalie Robyn also left in May, less than two years after she took on the role.
