FIA holds fire on F1 restructure plans in response to Abu Dhabi GP

In the wake of the completion of its investigation into the handling of the safety car restart at last year's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem unveiled its findings at a meeting of the F1 Commission in London.

But rather than taking the moment to propose the changes that the FIA will make in response to the events, the governing body has elected to wait a little longer before confirming what it wants to do.

A statement from the FIA said that Ben Sulayem wanted to incorporate feedback from the teams at the F1 Commission into the FIA's action plan, to ensure that any changes it did make were as robust as possible.

"The FIA President led detailed discussions of the 2021 FIA Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix," said the statement.

"Feedback from the Commission on matters raised will be incorporated into the President's analysis and he will publicly present news of structural changes and action plan in the coming days."

No further details about what the FIA found in its investigation, or plans to do, have been forthcoming, but it is anticipated that the governing body will make structural tweaks to the way race control is run in F1.

It wants to ensure that the F1 race director is given more support, amid a widespread feeling that Michael Masi was overburdened and put under too much pressure during last season.

The fate of Masi remains unclear, though, with the FIA having admitted that there is a possibility he could be replaced for the 2022 season because of the events of last year.

Masi's future, as well as the plans for race control and the new structure for running F1 events, are all likely to form part of the proposal that the FIA will announce soon.

The issue of drawing a line under the events of Abu Dhabi is a critical moment for Ben Sulayem, as it is his first major action since he took over the FIA presidency at the end of last year.

And although the events of Abu Dhabi took place under the watch of his predecessor Jean Todt, the tone of the current presidency could well be dictated by how strong Ben Sulayem's response to the ongoing controversy is.