until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
A restructuring of the FIA’s sporting department will include a new organisation to cover the majority of circuit and some non-circuit championships, including Formula E – which will have a replacement for new Mahindra team principal Frederic Bertrand.
The Race can reveal that the ‘Circuit Sport’ division will be headed up by Marek Nawarecki. The department’s structure is due to be finalised at the beginning of 2023.
Nawarecki, a former team manager for Citroen Racing and marketing chief at Peugeot Sport, has already taken up the position, which he will run in tandem with duties in some other FIA championships.
He has spent the last few seasons at World Touring Car Cup (WTCR), World Endurance Championship and European Truck Racing events in his capacity as FIA categories manager and has also been director of sport at the Touring Cars department.
Nawarecki will take on similar responsibilities to those held by previous FIA director of racing activities Bertrand, who left the FIA last month to join the Mahindra Formula E team.
Bertrand took up his position officially last week and is in attendance at the current Valencia test.
Now circuit championships, innovative championships and projects formerly under the responsibility of Bertrand, as well as the CIK Karting category, will come under Nawarecki’s remit.
“I will head the department called Circuit Sport that will regroup all the circuit disciplines such as Endurance, Touring Cars, Formula E, Electric Touring Cars, GT, Truck Racing, Drag Racing, Drifting, Karting, and others including esports, so I will be in charge to manage this,” Nawarecki told The Race.
“It’s the result of the merger of three big entities: the first being Circuit Championships, my former department, the second is the Formula E and Innovative Sport Activities department which was under the responsibility of Frederic Bertrand, and the third is CIK Karting.
“The purpose is not only to have everybody together but somehow to find and create synergies between them to improve operational efficiency, to enhance the common standards of the FIA processes.
“As you know, we have many standard processes that are applied in different disciplines and sometimes there are different approaches.”
Nawarecki said that he believes the new-look structure will be positive for Formula E, which has faced some criticism from manufacturers for the way the Gen3 project has developed this year.
“I see a lot of opportunity to put everything together,” he said.
“In the case of Formula E for example, which is the pinnacle of electric racing, we know that within the FIA we have more and more electric series so probably it will also be an opportunity to see how these different series can work together to share experience and competences between the group of people that are involved and continue to push forward the new technologies.”
Nawarecki confirmed that development of the department he will manage is “an ongoing process” but that his team is “now formed”.
“At the moment, the structure remains the same in each activity, but with time it can evolve,” he said.
