Drivers hoping to be more "connected" to the FIA after Wittich departure
F1 News
One of the biggest stories that broke during the two-week gap before the Las Vegas Grand Prix was that Niels Wittich, the former race director in Formula 1, was to be leaving his post. There is still no real clarity on whether he left the job by his own choice, or whether he was sacked, with Sergio Perez believing it was the latter. What we do know for certain is that Wittich's replacement will be former Formula 2 and Formula 3 race director Rui Marques, and his first race will be in the 'Sin City' this weekend.
The move to replace Wittich was an extremely quick procedure, with FIA staff alerted about the news on the day of the German's departure. Wittich first came into the race director post in 2022, replacing Michael Masi after the 2021 season. But now, he will not see out for the 2024 season, and Marques will take the reins for the remainder of this season, with both the drivers' and constructors' championships still yet to be decided.
"Hopefully, [Marques] is going to be fine"
In the drivers' press conference in Las Vegas, both Kevin Magnussen and Esteban Ocon were asked about the departure of Wittich and the arrival of Marques, with the Dane starting by saying: "I don't know if it's a big concern, as such. I think it's a tough job and it's a job that requires experience. To be honest, I don't know how experienced the new guy is. I know he's come from F2 and F3, so he must have some experience. Hopefully, he's going to be fine."
However, Magnussen hopes there is clear improvement in the relationship between the drivers and the FIA, something that was achieved greatly when the late Charlie Whiting was at the helm as race director: "I think we all, certainly I do, tend to compare to the Charlie Whiting days. Certainly, for us drivers, he was someone that we felt really connected to and always felt like we were being listened to. Whereas now, it seems like it's a lot of us against them almost. It should definitely be more of a cooperation and a closer connection between us and them because we can help each other a lot. Hopefully, the new guy will help go in that direction."
Marques will come into this Grand Prix weekend on the back of being race director at the Macau Grand Prix in the Formula Regional series. Although Las Vegas will not be an easy race to start with, Ocon believes it will not be too challenging for the new director: "As George said before, it's definitely not an easy race to start in around here as a street circuit. But I think Rui, he came from Macau just now so it's probably a tougher circuit than here. Looking forward to meet him and have good chats in the drivers’ meeting with him and see how he works.
"I'm sure we are going to be talking a lot on how he does things, what ideas he has on very important topics to us, like track limits, curbs, etc. Everybody has his way of doing things. We need to communicate well in terms of what we feel is very important going forward," concluded the Frenchman.
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