'Ben Sulayem attempted to cancel Las Vegas GP last year'
General
According to a whistleblower within the FIA, President Mohammed Ben Sulayem allegedly gave officials instructions to have the Las Vegas circuit rejected last year. With that, the Grand Prix in the US city would not go ahead. Eventually, the circuit was still given the necessary licence to welcome Formula One.
The coverage follows news a day earlier, when it was announced that Ben Sulayem was under internal investigation. The Emirati allegedly interfered with a Fernando Alonso time penalty in the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix a year ago.
The employee or collaborator reported the allegation the FIA's compliance officer to its ethics committee. The BBC saw this report. It states that at the behalf of the FIA president, they had to find a way that made the track unsafe and prevented the race from going ahead.
The documents go on to say, "Asked to be more specific, [the whistleblower] said that issues on the circuit were meant to be artificially identified regardless of their actual existence, with the ultimate goal of withholding the licence."
The report further states that the officials were "unable to find any concerns with the circuit and therefore certified the circuit fit for the race". Why Ben Sulayem would have wanted things called off is not known.
Is the whistleblower right?
The whistleblower instructed an official to comply with Ben Sulayem's request. This would have included two other officials. However, the BBC reports that it has learned that other officials present at the time have a different recollection of the events than the whistleblower themself.