A French court is set to weigh in on the FIA’s presidential election process at precisely the moment Mohammed Ben Sulayem is moving to reshape how long the job can be held — and, by extension, how hard it is to run against him.
Ben Sulayem has backed a proposal that would remove term limits for the FIA presidency, a restriction introduced under Jean Todt. Under the current rules, the president can serve a maximum of three four-year terms. The change is expected to be put to the vote at next month’s FIA General Assembly and is widely anticipated to pass.
On paper, the FIA is framing this as an exercise in consistency rather than a presidential power grab. In a statement attributed to an FIA spokesperson, the organisation says it wants “a consistent approach to tenure across all FIA bodies”, aligning with what already exists for the world councils and the senate, and stresses that member bodies would “retain full authority to democratically elect officeholders”.
That language is doing a lot of work — because the politics around the presidency have rarely been more charged. Ben Sulayem has led the FIA since 2021 and is now in his second term after being re-elected unopposed in December, a situation that came about through a technicality around vice president candidate selection. It’s that process which prompted presidential candidate Laura Villars to launch legal action against the governing body, with a French court now poised to rule.
And it isn’t just term limits on the table. There is also a reported proposal that would require future presidential candidates to have “suitable” experience within an FIA member club or FIA body — a credentialing bar that would narrow the field to insiders. Another mooted change would more than double the timeframe for prospective candidates to confirm their vice president line-up, from 49 days to 100 days before an election.
Taken together, those tweaks point to a familiar institutional instinct: stability dressed as governance reform. The FIA will argue it’s building a more professional, predictable process, particularly for a role that sits at the intersection of global mobility lobbying, grassroots sport, and the commercial heat of Formula 1. Critics will see a rulebook being shaped around an incumbent’s priorities — longer tenure on offer, a smaller pool of challengers, and more procedural hurdles to clear.
It lands in a paddock climate where Ben Sulayem’s presidency has been polarising even by FIA standards. Flashpoints have arrived from several directions, but the cultural battle over language has arguably been the most visible. Charles Leclerc was fined for swearing, while Max Verstappen was handed a community service order over language used in FIA press conferences — decisions that triggered a pushback from the Grand Prix Drivers Association in the form of an open letter.
The ripples didn’t stop at F1. When rally driver Adrien Fourmaux was fined for swearing, drivers in the WRC formed the World Rally Drivers Alliance and staged a silent protest at the 2025 Safari Rally Kenya, refusing to speak in interviews or speaking only in their native languages. In a sport that relies on access and broadcast storytelling, that kind of collective action is a big red flag — not because it’s disastrous in itself, but because it signals a breakdown in trust between competitors and regulator.
Meanwhile, the FIA has also seen a churn of senior figures leaving or being removed during Ben Sulayem’s time in charge, adding to the impression of an organisation in which politics and personnel have become inseparable.
All of this matters in 2026 because the FIA isn’t just an abstract governing body; it’s the rule-maker and enforcer in a Formula 1 era already defined by major change. And while Ben Sulayem’s advocacy for a return to V8 engines — a shift he says will happen no later than 2031, with 2030 as a target — plays well with parts of the fanbase, it also underscores how much of the current presidency is tied to strong personal positions. In that context, removing presidential term limits doesn’t read like a neutral housekeeping exercise. It reads like an attempt to ensure those positions can be pursued over a longer horizon.
Whether FIA members view that as a feature or a problem will determine how the General Assembly vote goes. But the timing is awkward: a court challenge hanging over the election mechanics, a package of proposals that tightens the definition of who can run and when, and an incumbent seeking to scrap the guardrails that were designed to prevent power from settling too comfortably in one office.
The FIA can point, legitimately, to democratic elections by its member clubs. Yet in politics — sporting or otherwise — the most consequential victories are often secured not on polling day, but in the rules that decide who gets on the ballot and what “fair” looks like.
