F1 tensions with FIA on ‘inflated price tag’

FORMULA One is never more than a chicane away from an unseemly spat.

Last week’s surfacing of tensions between the sport’s custodians the FIA and its owners Liberty Media demonstrated F1 is basking in a resurgence of popularity, fuelled by the exploits of its leading actors Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, adrenaline-sapping wheel-to-wheel racing, and an expanding fanbase driven in part by the success of Netflix’s fly-on-the-pitlane-wall series “Drive To Survive”.

Yet purported Saudi interest in adding F1 to its growing sport-portfolio beyond LIV Golf and the Premier League has triggered a row that threatens to act as a damaging backdrop to the 2023 season just weeks away from the opening race in Bahrain.

It was a tweet from FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem on Monday that ignited Liberty Media’s indignation.

Ben Sulayem described as “an inflated price tag being put on F1” a report in Bloomberg that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) had tried and failed to buy F1 for $20 billion ($A28 billion).

Despite suggestions a Saudi bid was “wide of the mark” Ben Sulayem’s intervention sparked an angry response from Liberty Media.

The Colorado-based company, which took over the sports’ commercial rights holder for $4.4 billion ($6.2 billion) in 2017, called Ben Sulayem’s comments “unacceptable”.

A letter seen by various media to the FIA said the remarks “overstep the bounds of both the FIA’s remit and its contractual rights”.

It came with a threat – that the FIA “may be liable” for any damage to Liberty’s value.