Kenya’s FIA HPP graduate gaining invaluable experience as Stewards’ Observer

For Kenyan motor sport skilled and graduate of the FIA Excessive Efficiency Programme, Tuta Mionki, 2024 provided a useful alternative to immerse herself on the earth of stewarding on the highest attainable degree, by means of expertise gained in each FIA Components 1 World Championship and the FIA World Rally Championship

Mionki’s motor sport journey stared in her native Kenya, additionally the house of the Safari Rally, an iconic fixture on the FIA World Rally Championship calendar. She started her profession as a rally co-driver over a decade in the past. “I began out in motor sport in 2011 in Kenya as a rally co-driver and rallied till round 2020. Through the COVID-19 pandemic, in fact, there was little taking place with motor sport” she mentioned throughout this yr’s Qatar Grand Prix, her second Components 1 occasion as Observer to FIA Components 1 Stewards.

“I felt like I wanted to exit the lively competitors however nonetheless stay in motor sport,” she explains. Conversations with skilled stewards in Kenya opened up a brand new chapter. “Considered one of them talked to me about stewarding, which I felt is one thing that I can do. Based mostly on my background in human useful resource and labour legal guidelines, I assumed there was a little bit of a reference to how a steward is mainly a decide.”

After finishing regional coaching in Africa and the FIA Worldwide Steward’s Coaching in 2022, the next yr Mionki, a member of Kenya Motorsport Federation, joined the FIA Excessive Efficiency Programme, an initiative which offers tailor-made training and mentorship to arrange stewards and race administrators for roles at FIA World Championship-level occasions. “I did two days [at FIA office] in Geneva, coaching with different HPP members, doing each race management and stewarding,” she recollects.

Her first style of Components 1 got here the identical yr when she was invited as Observer to Imola for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Although the occasion was cancelled as a consequence of extreme flooding, she quickly had one other alternative on the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. “It was an thrilling expertise – seeing how choices are made, sitting in hearings, with the ability to ask questions,” she says. “The stewards had been very open in the best way they train.”

The connection between Mionki’s rallying background in Kenya and her stewarding aspirations led to her rising experience extending to WRC, the place she noticed the Stewards’ operations on the Central European Rally, the penultimate spherical of this yr’s season.

For Mionki, the FIA Excessive Efficiency Programme has been transformative. “It’s a incredible initiative,” she says. “The stewards I’ve labored with are very open, encouraging, and concerned us in decision-making processes. These experiences are invaluable.”

Her case additionally serves as the proper instance of the sensible values provided by the FIA HPP programme. “You may sit in a classroom and study lots, however till you see it being finished virtually, you virtually don’t get it. Transferring from watching Components 1 on TV to sitting in a steward’s room and experiencing what occurs, I’ve a greater understanding of selections and why they’re made. I’m grateful for this chance and I’d wish to thank the FIA President and everybody else behind this programme,” she admits.

Trying forward, Mionki goals to contribute to each Components 1 and WRC on the stewarding degree. “I wish to be a Components 1 steward and a WRC steward. I expressed my curiosity in these two areas as a result of they align with my expertise and passions,” she concludes.

The FIA HPP has 23 members representing 16 completely different FIA Member Golf equipment from six areas. As well as, the FIA’s Regional Stewards Coaching Programme gathered 195 distinctive members, with the common age being 37.5 and with 42% feminine participation.