FIA election heads to court as Villars challenges process, claims “democratic failings”
The FIA’s presidential race has taken a sharp turn from committee rooms to a Paris courtroom, with candidate Laura Villars securing authorisation to summon the governing body before an emergency hearing at the Judicial Court of Paris on November 10.
It’s a dramatic twist in a contest that seemed set to return Mohammed Ben Sulayem for a second term without a vote. Villars’ move follows months of what she describes as unproductive exchanges with the FIA over election rules and the mechanics of assembling a valid Presidential List.
At the heart of the dispute is a quirk of the FIA’s statutes. Any presidential candidate must submit a slate of seven vice presidents with regional representation, and those names must be drawn from nominees to the World Motor Sport Council. In South America, only one figure stepped forward for that body: Fabiana Ecclestone, who has publicly backed Ben Sulayem’s campaign. With no alternative in that region, rival candidates say they were effectively unable to file a complete Presidential List before the October 24 deadline.
Villars, one of three challengers to announce a run alongside Tim Mayer and Virginie Philippot, isn’t letting the deadline end the story. Her camp says the court approved an hour-to-hour emergency summons—rare, but not unheard of—which they argue reflects the urgency and admissibility of the case.
“I have twice tried to open a constructive dialogue with the FIA on essential matters such as internal democracy and the transparency of electoral rules,” Villars said in a statement. “The responses received were not up to the challenge. I am not acting against the FIA. I am acting to protect it. Democracy is not a threat to the FIA; it is its strength.”
Her attorney, Robin Binsard of the Paris Bar, added that the court’s authorisation signals it “is taking seriously the serious democratic failings within the FIA, as well as several violations of its Statutes and Regulations that we have denounced.”
The legal push follows a public broadside from fellow candidate Tim Mayer earlier this month. Mayer, who is understood to have been in contact with Villars about the increasingly narrow path for challengers, framed the process as “not democracy, just theatre,” acknowledging he couldn’t complete a compliant list and would likely be rejected. His central criticism mirrors Villars’: when certain regions produce only nominees aligned with the incumbent, the door effectively shuts on opposition.
The FIA, for its part, stands firmly behind its process. In a statement, the governing body described the election as “structured and democratic,” with unchanged requirements set out in its Statutes and Internal Regulations and made publicly available. Detailed information for the 2025 elections, the FIA says, has been online since June 13 and communicated to all members, including the stipulation that vice presidents for sport must be selected from the World Motor Sport Council—criteria the FIA notes have applied in previous cycles.
“As to be expected, preparing a candidature for a Presidential List or the World Councils requires certain steps to be taken,” the statement continued. “Prospective candidates have had since the publication of the detailed information on 13 June to prepare their applications.” Asked specifically about the Villars case, the FIA declined to comment further, citing the ongoing legal process.
If you strip away the legalese, this is a fight over control of the ballot—and, by extension, the narrative. Incumbents tend to benefit from governance structures; challengers tend to rail against them. But this one has real teeth because of the narrow representation in key regions. When South America offers only a single WMSC nominee—one who supports the sitting president—the letter of the rules collides with the spirit of an open contest.
What happens next? The November 10 hearing is expedited by French standards and suggests the court recognises time is tight as the nomination window closes and the FIA calendar barrels toward year’s end. An urgent ruling could, in theory, force a rethink on deadlines or eligibility, or it could leave the current framework untouched, effectively clearing the way for an unopposed re-election. Either way, the optics will matter as much as the outcome. For a body that has spent the past few seasons stress-testing its own transparency—under scrutiny on topics from cost controls to officiating—this is another governance flashpoint arriving at a sensitive moment.
Villars, Mayer and Philippot might not yet have the numbers, but they’ve made the process itself the headline. And that—more than any stump speech—has put the FIA’s election under a brighter light than anyone in Place de la Concorde would have hoped for this late in the year.
