What the FIA is going on?

With Mohammed Ben Sulayem facing legal threats, is this the beginning of the end?

The FIA under Mohammed Ben Sulayem has had its fair share of controversies - Ben Sulayem even has his own ‘controversies’ section on Wikipedia. However, none seem to be more serious than the current legal threats he is facing.

Motorsport UK Chair, David Richards CBE, sits on the World Motor Sport Council and has published a letter on behalf of the organisation to voice concerns over “the erosion of accountability and good governance within the FIA”.

Richards’ claims follow a fresh controversy last week where members of the World Motor Sport Council were refused entry to a meeting after having failed to sign a revised confidentiality agreement. It is worth noting that the FIA statutes require all elected members to be given full access to council meetings.

The revised NDA bans council members from talking about FIA matters outside of official council meetings. Richards and several other council members saw this as more of a “gagging order” than a way to prevent information leaks to the media. His main concern was a clause that would allow the FIA to decide whether a member had breached confidentiality at its own discretion with an immediate €50,000 fine for anyone found to be in breach.

Richards also raised concerns about the scope of the Audit and Ethics Committee. He said it “has been severely limited and now lacks autonomy from the authority of the President.”

The letter published on behalf of Motorsport UK follows recent statements from the GPDA and the WoRDA.

The GPDA is the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, of which Carlos Sainz has recently just been appointed Director, replacing Sebastian Vettel. In November 2024, all grand prix drivers released a joint statement regarding the punishments for ‘driver misconduct’. They said: “All our members are adults, they do not need to be given instructions via the media, about matters as trivial as the wearing of jewellery and underpants.” The statement also raised the issue of swearing, in which they expressed their belief that there is a difference in swearing with intention to insult compared to swearing due to the pressure in such an environment. The final thing they noted was the lack of transparency from the FIA President over where the money from the fines goes.

The FIA did not release any official response to this and instead, the FIA President updated the ‘driver misconduct’ regulations for 2025. As of this year, if drivers repeatedly swear or criticise the FIA publicly, then they may face fines of up to €120,000 and a one-month suspension.

The fines were most recently applied at the World Rally Championship where French driver, Adrian Fourmaux was punished for saying “we f***** up yesterday” in a media interview. He received a €10,000 fine and a €20,000 suspended fine for swearing.

In response to this, WoRDA (World Rally Drivers Alliance) released a statement in late February with similar sentiments to that of the GDPA where they called for direct communication and engagement between the FIA President and WoRDA members. They also expressed how they believe that the severity of sanctions has reached an “unacceptable level” regarding “minor, isolated and unintentional language lapses”.

The FIA and its President have not released any formal response to this. However, the letter from Motorsport UK may force the hand of the FIA President as David Richards concluded the letter by saying:

“We have informed the FIA that unless they address the issues we’ve raised, we will be engaging in further legal action.”

There will be an election for the FIA President role later this year. It is hard to see Ben Sulayem having an effective campaign considering all the recent protests against his leadership. However, an opposition standing against a sitting FIA President is not often seen and at present, no one is openly campaigning for this role.

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