Niels Wittich’s next stop in motorsport isn’t another control room or a pitwall briefing — it’s the fencing.
The former FIA Formula 1 race director has joined Geobrugg Motorsport, the Swiss firm whose catch-fencing and debris protection systems have become a familiar (and largely unnoticed) part of modern grand prix life. Wittich will work as a project manager and international sales lead for Geobrugg’s motorsport arm, a role that leans heavily on the less glamorous half of race control: the constant, forensic work of safety assessment.
It’s an interesting landing spot for someone whose name became shorthand for calm decision-making under scrutiny. Geobrugg isn’t a paddock brand in the way a tyre supplier or a title sponsor is, but its products are threaded right through the calendar. Its barriers and fencing — including the first homologated FIA debris fences — are used at venues such as Miami, Las Vegas, Yas Marina, Silverstone, Zandvoort, Barcelona, the Hungaroring, Baku and Portimão.
And while fans tend to remember race directors for red flags and safety cars, the real business of safety is usually decided months before anyone turns a wheel: where the fencing line sits, how it’s anchored, what load cases it’s designed around, and what a circuit can physically build within its own constraints. That’s the world Wittich is stepping into — and it’s not hard to see why Geobrugg would want someone who has spent years looking at circuits with a risk assessor’s eye.
In announcing his appointment, Geobrugg pointed straight to the traits that made Wittich a known quantity in Formula 1. “Many will know Niels from his role as Formula 1 Race Director, where precision and composure are essential,” the company said, describing him as “a leader who remains calm under immense pressure.”
The company also leaned on the breadth of his CV beyond F1, noting more than 20 years in high-level motorsport and senior roles across Formula E, DTM, Formula 3 and Formula 2, alongside his involvement with the FIA Circuits Commission — the less-publicised corner of the sport where the practical decisions about track safety infrastructure actually get shaped.
Wittich’s FIA exit remains one of the more awkwardly handled personnel changes of the last few seasons. He was the sole F1 race director through 2023 and for most of 2024, having shared duties with Eduardo Freitas on a rotating basis in 2022 after Michael Masi was removed from the role in the aftermath of the 2021 season finale.
Ahead of the 2024 Las Vegas Grand Prix, the FIA replaced Wittich with Rui Marques, stating at the time that Wittich had “stepped down… to pursue new opportunities.” Wittich later pushed back publicly via German media, saying he hadn’t resigned and claiming he had been fired — a version of events that naturally fuelled paddock chatter that his relationship with FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem had deteriorated.
Whatever the internal politics looked like, Wittich has kept himself in the ecosystem rather than disappearing from it. He has continued as race director for GT World Challenge Europe under SRO, and while there are no current plans for him to attend F1 races this year, his new job still places him squarely in the sport’s bloodstream. Geobrugg doesn’t just sell a product; it consults, designs, produces and installs safety solutions across categories including Formula 1, Formula E, WEC, World Rallycross and MotoGP. It’s the kind of role that turns up at circuits long before the TV compound is built and stays long after the hospitality has left.
At the start of the 2026 season, Wittich offered a personal update on where his career had gone since leaving the FIA, framing 2025 as a year of broadening his platform rather than simply changing jobs. Alongside his SRO duties, he worked as an expert for Sky F1 TV Germany and launched the “Niels Wittich Show” with Champ1, aimed at explaining the mechanics of race weekends and the logic behind officiating calls — a perspective few people are qualified to give, and even fewer are willing to put in public.
He also reflected on the sheer sprawl of modern motorsport, referencing the 24 Hours of Spa and work across GTWC Asia and the Intercontinental GT Challenge, and noted that he was open to further opportunities “on track, on air, and beyond” where experience and perspective could add value.
Geobrugg, clearly, sees the value — and there’s a quiet symmetry to the move. Race directors spend their careers reacting to the consequences of what happens when cars leave the track. The best safety work is about reducing the chances of those moments becoming defining ones in the first place.
For Wittich, it’s a return to the grid in a different uniform: less visible, less debated, but arguably closer to the engineering reality that keeps modern racing possible.
