The FIA yesterday (8 February) held its Race Directors Seminar as a prelude to the FIA International Stewards Seminar, an event that brings together more than 110 experts - including 70 race directors - from across the FIA’s championships and international series.

Charlie Whiting, FIA Director of Single-Seater Department & FIA Director of Formula One and Laurent Mekies, FIA Safety Director, spent the first part of the seminar presenting the latest changes to the International Sporting Code and discussing the implications of those changes on motor sport globally. It was also an occasion to focus on the latest developments and best practice in different areas of event operations, such as safety car procedures, starts procedures, rolling start procedures, track limits and the latest circuit homologation project.

Commenting on the second such annual seminar organised by the FIA, Charlie Whiting said: “I think the most important thing about this seminar is to open everybody’s eyes to different ways of doing things. There is almost always more than one way to correctly do things right and the right course of action depends on many factors. There are not only series- or championship-specific approaches that might be of benefit elsewhere but you also have people saying ‘that’s a good idea, we could use that in our series’. That is where the benefit of this seminar lies.”

Laurent Mekies added: “It is only the second edition of the FIA Race Director Seminar and it is great to see such a large attendance of Race Directors from most championships and series worldwide. Benefiting from each other’s experience we have aligned over best practice in order to ensure a safe and fair running of the events, and just as importantly, we have very much grown as a united community that the FIA is proud to drive and support. Many projects to further improve the tools a race director has to perform in his functions were discussed and will be developed in the course of 2018.”

The second part of the seminar focuses on practical case studies, during which race directors from a wide range of motor sport disciplines took the opportunity to exchange experience.

More FIA Senior Officials will be joining the FIA Headquarters in Geneva this weekend as the Race Director Seminar will be followed by the International Steward Program involving Stewards from national and international level.