With the resignation of the FIA deputy president Robert Reid, president Mohammed Ben Suleyam has lost his most senior management figure while criticism against his course of action has swelled to significant levels.
Reid announced on Thursday that he was leaving with immediate effect over what he felt was a "breakdown of governance standards" and "critical decisions being made without due process".
His comments echo criticism fielded by Motorsport UK chairman David Richards, who wrote in an open letter that "the governance and constitutional organisation of the FIA is becoming ever more opaque and concentrating power in the hands of the president alone”.
Both Reid and Richards were recently barred from attending a World Motor Sport Council meeting over their refusal to sign a non-disclosure agreement as part of a stricter protocol imposed by the president. Richards characterised the move as a "gagging order".
Criticism of Ben Sulayem's management is not new. Chief executive Natalie Robyn left her role last year after just 18 months over similar governance concerns, following the resignations of single-seater technical director Tim Goss, sporting director Steve Nielsen, and Deborah Mayer, the president of the FIA's Women in Motorsport Commission.
While Ben Sulayem has not shied away from controversies on a variety of matters, the focal point of opposition against his reign stems from his apparent move towards a blueprint of what critics have characterised as a more authoritarian leadership style.
An army of executives, officials and stewards have since been removed - critics may prefer the word 'purged' - from their position following intervention by the president, including long-time steward Tim Mayer, while Ben Sulayem also clamped down on other matters including driver swearing and the wearing of jewellery by drivers, and is accused of stalling the governance part of the new Concorde Agreement.
Criticism grew after the FIA's General Assembly in Rwanda last year, where amended statutes were voted through that effectively limited to which extent FIA leadership can be held accountable, handing Ben Sulayem and the FIA senate president Carmelo Sanz De Barros the power to decide whether to take further action on any ethics complaints, including any about themselves.
Ben Sulayem had been subject of a probe into allegedly intervening to overturn a penalty against Fernando Alonso at the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and the certification of F1's new Las Vegas Grand Prix circuit. After an investigation by the FIA ethics committee, the Emirati was cleared of any wrongdoing.
The compliance officer in charge of the investigation, Paolo Basarri, was later sacked after disagreements with the president, with reports suggesting the Italian paid the price for pushing back against Ben Sulayem's requests.
Reid said the FIA's decision to take the promotion of the World Rallycross Championship in-house "without Senate or World Council approval", circumventing the body's usual governance structure, was the final straw that led to his resignation.
It is that apparent concentration of power, that contradicts the FIA president's initial election promise of vowing to be hands-off and transparent, that is now causing the initial ripples against his management style to swell into a tidal wave.
What's next?
The resignation of deputy president Reid - the man who ran alongside Ben Sulayem's presidential ticket in 2021 - is by far the most high-profile departure yet, perhaps best compared to a US vice president resigning over the sitting president's actions.
The timing is no great coincidence. Ben Sulayem is up for re-election at the end of the year, with no clear opposition candidate identified at this stage. At 72 Richards himself is too old to run, past the FIA-imposed limit of 70, with 59-year-old Reid's future plans unclear.
But the fact that both Richards and Reid have spoken out against Ben Sulayem in public to such a degree suggests knives are being sharpened and moves are being made to stand against Ben Sulayem as he seeks a second term.
Whoever ends up running against Ben Sulayem will have a huge challenge on their hands, though. The new president will be voted in by the FIA General Assembly, the same organisation that voted 75% in favour of the change in accountability statutes that have caused such an outrage.
The General Assembly consists of all member clubs and national sporting authorities representing the 245 member organisations hailing from 149 countries, with all members having the same voting power. It encourages the presidency to make sure to keep the smaller nations and clubs on board - similarly to football behemoth FIFA - so it will take some doing for the European-based opposition against Ben Sulayem to win the numbers game.
Time will tell if the swelling wave of protest will grow into the tsunami required to topple him. It appears the waters are being tested.
