First of all, we have to remember that Stefano Domenicali will become the new CEO and chairman of Formula 1 from next year, it is said that this will be a big change in the organization that will have the highest category of motorsport. Consequently, his previous position will be left without a president and former Force India's main team, Bob Fernley, will become head of the FIA's single-seater commission.

As a little preamble of his career, Bob Fernley worked with the Ensign F1 team and started noticing how good he was while developing a Formula 1 car. Indycar was also in his bucket list as he worked in the American series. He started a great relationship with Vijay Mallya, who bought the Spyker team at the end of 2007, turning it into Force India. He became team principal of the Indian team but, once the team was involved in legal issues and was bought by Canadian multimillionaire, Lawrence Stroll, he left in the summer of 2018 after a lot of changes were made in the organization of the team, as it was reborn as Racing Point.

2019 was a difficult year for him as he entered McLaren’s Indy 500 programme as its head, but did not ended the way he wanted as Fernando Alonso failed to qualify. Nowadays and before this announcement, he was involved in promoting young engineering talent in the National Centre for Motorsport Engineering at the University of Bolton. These were some statements he made after being announced as Domenicali’s substitute.

“I think the rebel has finally come into the establishment! Obviously, I’m following in the footsteps of two very good predecessors in Gerhard and Stefano. So a lot of work to do for my side to equal and match what they’ve been doing over the years.” He affirmed.

Gerhard Berger was the FIA single-seater commissioner before Stefano Domenicalli took it over and now that he will be Formula One’s CEO and Chairman, Fernley will take the role.

“It’ll take me a few months to get my feet under the table as you can imagine. But once we’re underway with it, hopefully we can continue the good work that they’ve done, and maybe progress it on a little bit.”

“Both Gerhard and Stefano obviously put all that in place. But I think there’s still probably work to be done, particularly on affordability. That’s something I was very keen on, even at Force India.” He stated.

Bob Fernley has gained a lot of experience while being in inferior categories, just like Formula 4, Formula 3, Formula 2, GP3, F-Renault World Series by Renault, GP2, Superformula, etc. This expererience, if it is correctly used, it can bring more security to inferior categories and this can be very helpful since a lot of drivers in these categories are very young as they are trying to make their way into Formula 1.