The FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has been under intense scrutiny in the latter parts of 2024 due to an open letter from the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, which is the trade union for Formula 1 drivers.
Within the letter the GPDA urged the FIA to treat F1 drivers like “adults” and for Ben Sulayem to “consider his own tone and language”, following the swearing controversy that resulted in Max Verstappen effectively being given community service.
Ben Sulayem has also appeared in the press on various other occasions, claiming that the British media “convicted me” or that the FIA does not get the credit it deserves.
The 63-year-old Emirati has been in the job since 2021 having succeeded Jean Todt who held the position for 12 years - so here is all to know about the role of FIA president.
What does the President of the FIA do?
The FIA president is the external face of motor racing’s governing body, who leads the organisation and oversees any changes it makes to the championships under its umbrella.
To become the FIA president, one must run for an election which is held every four years where FIA Member Clubs are eligible to vote. Those clubs span across six continents, including the likes of the Royal Automobile Club in London, the Australian Automobile Association in Canberra or the Canadian Automobile Association in Ottawa who all vote depending on which manifesto it likes the most.
An FIA president is limited to three terms meaning they can serve for a maximum of 12 years, therefore Ben Sulayem is running for election again in 2025 and can do so in 2029 as well.
Once elected, the president is in charge of running the FIA and has a big say on whatever changes are made, for example to the F1 race director.
In a shock announcement in November 2024, the FIA confirmed Niels Wittich had left the role with immediate effect in which it was understood that he was sacked amid a falling out with the president.
Wittich was replaced by the Formula 2 race director Rui Marques at a similar time it was announced the FIA had launched a new Officials Department to start a production line of trained race officials - headed by Ben Sulayem.
So the president is in charge of various initiatives run by the FIA to help grow motor racing. More of these initiatives include aiming to be Net Zero by 2030, introducing sustainable fuels to F1 for 2026 or even partnering with Cranfield University to award the Motorsport Engineering Scholarship to somebody with aspirations of a career within the industry. The projects are therefore at varying levels of the motorsport pyramid.
The president must also undertake vast public work. On an F1 weekend, for example, Ben Sulayem is regularly in parc ferme after track sessions and on the podium presenting the winner’s medal to the driver on the top step or walking down the pre-race grid networking with contacts.
It is also Ben Sulayem’s job to host the FIA Prize Giving ceremony, which at the end of each year honours all the newly crowned champions of the different FIA series, where the president delivers a speech and takes photographs with those receiving trophies.
Is the FIA President employed by F1?
F1 does not employ the FIA president, because the championship is actually sanctioned by the organisation meaning it has no say on who the president is or what they do.
What other series does the FIA President cover?
The FIA president is involved in any motorsport series that is regulated by the organisation, from F1 all the way down to karting.
There are currently 41 series that are run by the FIA, seven of which are considered to be world championships: F1, Formula E, World Rally Championship, World Endurance Championship, World Rallycross Championship, World Rally-Raid Championship and the World Karting Championship.
So the FIA president could have an involvement in any one of those series and may ultimately have the final say on decisions made regarding that respective championship.
How involved with F1 does the FIA President usually get?
Considering F1 is the biggest championship under the FIA umbrella, the president has often been seen at grands prix throughout the years with much of the election manifestos concerning the series.
Todt, for example, worked at Ferrari for 15 years and during his reign as president, he was instrumental in bringing hybrid engines to the series in 2014 and played a role in F1’s We Race As One initiative which encouraged greater diversity and condemned racism.
But Todt never publicly voiced his opinions as much as Ben Sulayem, which is something former Haas F1 boss Gunther Steiner thinks the president needs to change.
"He's actually a good character,” Steiner told Sky Sports F1, “but as a president, I think sometimes he gets involved too much into the sport and he doesn't do himself any favours with that.
"You have to have people who run the organisation because it's a big job being a president of a federation like the FIA and if you get involved in the day-to-day running, I don't think there's the time there to do it at the level it needs to be done.
"He just, in my opinion, should have good people around him doing the job for him and he always gets involved in it and sometimes he's critiqued.
"In these positions, you need to get used to being critiqued, you cannot always be just [about] how good you are.
"If you get praise you also get criticism and when you're a public figure that is part of it. But you need to live with that, you cannot be everybody's friend. That is just not going to happen - not even [for] me!”
That came in the wake of the FIA asking drivers to minimise foul language over team radio during track sessions, despite the outbursts being bleeped out on the official television feed.
“We have to differentiate between our sport – motorsport – and rap music,” Ben Sulayem told Autosport.
“We're not rappers, you know. They say the F-word how many times per minute? We are not on that. That's them and we are [us].”
“We have to be careful with our conduct,” he added. “We need to be responsible people.
“And now with the technology, everything is going live and everything is going to be recorded. At the end of the day, we have to study that to see: do we minimise what is being said publicly?
“Because imagine you are sitting with your children and watching the race and then someone is saying all of this dirty language.
“I mean, what would your children or grandchildren say? What would you teach them if that is your sport?”
It prompted an angry response from the drivers eventually leading to the open letter from the GPDA, which not only condemned Ben Sulayem’s actions but also asked for greater clarity on how fines are allocated and where the funds are spent.
So, the FIA president has naturally always had a big involvement in F1, yet there are current debates over how much they should publicly offer their opinions on what’s happening within the series.
How much does the President of the FIA get paid?
The FIA president does not have a salary because the governing body is a non-profit organisation, which generates revenue through entry fees and super licence fees from the teams that compete within its championships.
Past FIA Presidents
|
President
|
Years in position
|
|
Mohammed Ben Sulayem
|
2021 - present
|
|
Jean Todt
|
2009 - 2021
|
|
Max Mosley
|
1993 - 2009
|
|
Jean-Marie Balestre
|
1985 - 1993
|
|
Paul Alfons Furst Von Metternich-Winneburg
|
1975 - 1985
|
|
Prince Amaury De Merode
|
1971 - 1975
|
|
Wilfrid Andrews
|
1965 - 1971
|
|
Prince Filippo Caracciolo Di Castagneto
|
1963 - 1965
|
|
Count Hadelin de Liedekerke Beaufort
|
1958 - 1963
|
|
Jehan de Rohan-Chabot
|
1936 - 1958
|
|
Count Robert de Vogue
|
1931 - 1936
|
|
Baron Etienne De Zuylen de Nyevelt
|
1904 - 1931
|
In this article
Ed Hardy
Formula 1
Be the first to know and subscribe for real-time news email updates on these topics
