Wolff says she's filed 'criminal complaint' against FIA

F1 Academy managing director Susie Wolff says she has "filed a criminal complaint" in relation to statements made by Formula 1's governing body the FIA in December of last year.

The FIA said at the time that it was "looking into" what it described as a claim of "information of a confidential nature being passed to an F1 team principal from a member of FOM [Formula One Management] personnel".

Wolff was not named by the FIA - nor was her husband Toto Wolff, the boss of the Mercedes F1 team - but they had been identified as the relevant parties in media reports from the same time, as a result of what Mercedes claimed was an off-the-record briefing to the media.

The Wolffs, and specifically Susie, were then publicly supported by F1 and Mercedes' nine rival teams, who all denied being the originators of "any complaint regarding the allegation" and professed their support for Wolff in her F1 Academy role.

And this was followed up shortly afterwards by the FIA's statement that sought to indirectly conclude the matter by saying "there is no ongoing investigation".

Wolff herself publicly deemed the FIA's statement as unsatisfactory. "For two days, insinuations have been made about my integrity in public and through background briefings, but nobody from the FIA has spoken to me directly," she wrote.

"I might have been collateral damage in an unsuccessful attack on somebody else, or the target of a failed attempt to discredit me personally, but I have worked too hard to have my reputation called into question by an unfounded press release."

That same day, her husband's Mercedes team described itself as being "in active legal exchange" with the FIA.

Four and a half months later, Wolff says she has "personally filed a criminal complaint in the French courts", spurred on by what she says is a lack of "transparency and accountability in relation to the conduct of the FIA and its personnel in this matter".

She says the criminal complaint was filed on March 4.

Her public confirmation of it comes on the same day as the FIA has announced in a statement that its president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, elected on a four-year term in 2021, has been cleared of allegations of "interference" relating to two F1 grands prix last year.