Former Sporting Director of the McLaren Formula One team Sam Michael has been announced as the new President of the FIA Safety Commission, replacing Sir Patrick Head.
The Safety Commission deals with accidents and safety equipment issues in all forms of motorsport and its most prominent recent investigation concerned the crash of Romain Grosjean at the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix.
Michael is one of many appointments confirmed at a meeting of the World Motor Sport Council on Thursday, the first chaired by new FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem.
Michael started his F1 career as an engineer at Lotus in 1993 before moving to Jordan after the Hethel team closed its doors.
He then joined Williams in 2001, where he held various positions including Chief Operations Engineer and Technical Director.
He joined McLaren in late 2011 before leaving F1 and returning to his native Australia after the 2014 season.
He worked for several years as a consultant to the Triple Eight Supercars team, while more recently he has focused outside of racing as CEO of Ox Mountain, a machine learning company he co-founded in 2015. He is also a part-time Lecturer at the University of Western Australia.
Michael first became involved with safety issues when he was invited to become Director of the Australian Institute for Motor Sport Safety in 2016.
The following year he became an adviser to the FIA’s research working group, a group of engineers that, among other things, tests new safety devices.
Michael, 50, also has a seat on the FIA Single Seater Commission. This body was previously headed by former Force India boss Robert Fernley, but the role is not currently filled on the FIA’s latest list.
Among other changes within the FIA structure, Felipe Massa moved from the presidency of the CIK International Karting Commission to head the Drivers’ Commission, replacing Tom Kristensen.
The latter was part of the team run by Ben Sulayem’s rival for the FIA Presidency, Graham Stoker.
Massa’s successor at the Karting Commission is the Indian Akbar Ebrahim.
Deborah Mayer has now succeeded Michele Mouton as President of the Women in Motorsport Commission.
