Controversial FIA statute voted through to make Mohammed Ben Sulayem's re-election bid ‘harder to challenge'

The FIA have approved statute changes that critics say will make it harder to challenge FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem's bid for re-election.
A spokesman for Formula 1 's governing body, whose world championships also include rallying and Formula E, said a "resounding majority" voted in favour at the General Assembly meeting in Macau.
He gave no figures and there was no immediate reaction from Ben Sulayem, an Emirati who will be standing for a second four-year term in December and is currently unopposed.
The Paris-based FIA also groups national motoring associations and campaigns for road safety.
Austria's Automobile Association (OAMTC) earlier urged FIA members to vote against the proposed changes in a letter seen by Reuters ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.
The unsigned letter emailed to the mobility section of the FIA's world council said the FIA risked lasting damage to its reputation.
"There is no urgency regarding these proposed changes,' it added. 'They risk further contributing to the erosion of the FIA's reputation for competent and transparent governance.
"It cannot be - and is not - a coincidence that changes relevant to the FIA's elections have been promoted by the FIA's leadership at the same time as the FIA's incumbent president has announced an intention to run in those elections.
"Where there is even a risk of these changes appearing to benefit the current FIA administration, and not the FIA itself, the changes should not be adopted."
Ben Sulayem told Reuters last month, when he confirmed he was standing, that he welcomed competition in the name of democracy.
Ben Sulayem recognised he had enemies but said he was confident of the support of a majority of FIA members.
"I only have to answer to my members. And they are happy. Actually, they are very happy. They are extremely happy," he said.
The former rally driver has been involved in several controversies since being elected in 2021 as the first FIA president from the Middle East.
He has been at loggerheads with drivers as well as drawing criticism from FIA insiders, while some senior employees have left the organisation.
Briton Robert Reid, a former close ally who quit as an FIA deputy president in April, wrote in his resignation statement of a "fundamental breakdown in governance standards" at the governing body.
Reid and Motorsport UK head David Richards had opposed other statute changes approved by the General Assembly last December that they said limited the powers of audit and ethics committees.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

The Sun

24 minutes ago

• The Sun

Gerwyn Price forced to withdraw from tournament at last minute with struggling darts star left bed-ridden

GERWYN PRICE was forced to withdraw from the Juliper Top of Darts exhibition following illness. Price, 40, revealed that he has been bed-ridden with a sickness this week and was unable to participate in the Belgian event. 3 The Iceman told that he has spent "18 of the last 24 hours in bed" due to the illness. While tournament organisers announced that he was replaced by 13-year-old rising star Lex Paeshuyse. The 2011-born thrower has impressed on the youth circuit, winning the 2024 World Masters, JDC World Championship and JDC Belgian Championship. Now he is been given a chance to impress alongside some darts' biggest names - including Michael van Gerwen - after getting the call-up to the exhibition. A statement from the tournament read: "Last night, we received word from Gerwyn Price that he has recently fallen ill. "As a result, he unfortunately had to cancel his participation in the tournament in Austria and will also be unable to attend tonight. "We immediately began searching for a worthy replacement with international appeal. However, this proved to be no easy task: many top players we contacted were already committed to other tournaments or had media obligations. "Nonetheless, we made a special decision. We already have a world champion in our midst, someone who has won several tournaments this year. That's why we chose to place our trust in youth. 3 3 "We are proud to announce that none other than Lex Paeshuyse will replace Gerwyn Price. "For Lex, this will be his very first appearance in a tournament of this level, where he will face the very best in the world. A young player to watch, and a talent we as Belgians can be especially proud of!" For Price, he appears to be on the mend - sharing photos of himself refuelling with some food on Instagram as he looks to get back to the oche as soon as possible. Price will be hoping he is back in action for next week's US Darts Masters in New York City. The incredible event sees eight PDC representatives face off against eight players from North America at the iconic Madison Square Garden.

Daily Mirror

4 hours ago

• Daily Mirror

Lando Norris told McLaren have 'already decided' on F1 Championship fight

Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are eyeing the world championship and have the fastest car on the F1 grid but McLaren may eventually have to make a decision on who they back Former Formula 1 star Ralf Schumacher believes McLaren have "internally decided that Oscar Piastri is the man" that will deliver them a the world championship with Lando Norris still too error prone. McLaren have the fastest package on the grid and lead both championships with Piastri currently 22 points ahead of Norris. That was aided by a retirement from the Brit last time out in Canada after he crashed into the back of his Australian team-mate. ‌ The team have adopted a 'let them race' approach but so far Piastri has had the edge over Norris, who has long been seen as the team's darling. The Aussie has won five of the ten races this season, underlining his own championship credentials. ‌ Norris has claimed two victories but some believe he lacks the mental capacity to see off his team-mate, who has shown his killer instinct in the past. McLaren refused to back Norris over Piastri last season when he attempted to chase down Max Verstappen for the title. This year they've still opted against picking a No 1 driver with both men free to pursue their ambitions, but inside the garage Schumacher believes they will have identified Piastri as the man to take them forward. READ MORE: Lando Norris to have showdown McLaren meeting after Oscar Piastri crash He told Sky Germany: 'I believe that it is now internally decided that Piastri is the man the team will focus on in terms of the World Championship. Lando shows too many weaknesses and makes too many mistakes, including his senseless driving into the back of Oscar in Canada.' Norris was out qualified by Piastri in Montreal but some strong race pace saw him chase down his team-mate. In the closing laps he looked to overtake his colleague but got his move wrong down the pit straight, later holding his hands up and owning his mistake. 'He has apologised and that shows what a great person he is,' said Schumacher. 'But it's no use, because great people rarely win titles.' McLaren were always open and honest and confessed that their strategy would inevitably lead to their two driver crashing on track. Team boss Andreas Stella has confessed that Norris' incident at Canada may have impacted his confidence with the team needing to help him back. He said: "Obviously it's an episode which cost him championship points. It's an episode that for his own admission he said, 'the principle was clear, I just made a misjudgement'. He never came to say, 'let's talk about it'. This may have an impact in terms of his confidence, but it's up to us as a team to show our full support to Lando."

Telegraph

4 hours ago

• Telegraph

This is why Reform is on the cusp of victory

New polling by Ipsos-Mori has Reform on 34 points, currently heading for a working majority in Parliament at the next election. If this came to pass, it would mark the most extraordinary result in British politics in at least a century. Can we really trust polls like these? Let us consider reasons to be sceptical. The first is that all polls like this – standard, nationally representative surveys of a few thousand voters – only capture national vote share. They do not project the corresponding outcome of seats. While we can make rudimentary assumptions of a party's likely representation in Parliament, they are still assumptions. A 34 per cent vote share would return a huge number of seats, but we cannot know whether the spread of votes would be broad enough to secure the number of seats implied by this poll. A party might receive 34 per cent of the vote share, but their support might be concentrated in small geographical areas. In such circumstances, Britain's 'first-past-the-post' electoral system would limit them to a small number of seats. We know Reform will get little support in the big cities; this will artificially inflate Labour's seats next time and limit Reform's. The second reason to be sceptical of these polls is that, this far out from an election, they cannot be treated seriously as predictions. Polls are merely snapshots of public opinion at an exact moment in time. Things were different three months ago; they will be different in three months from now. Sometimes, with polls like this, there is a third reason to be sceptical: you get 'rogue' polls which put one party in an unusually high or low position. Sometimes polls randomly tap into a sample which is out-of-line with public opinion for some reason. This is why you must consider the average of all polls of a given period, and also consider whether polls reflect trends. In considering this specific point, let us now flip the analysis back over. Let us consider why this poll should be taken seriously: there are several reasons to do so. You cannot credibly write this poll off as 'rogue'. This result of 34 per cent broadly reflects other polls coming out at the moment. While it is a little higher, it is not much higher, and it confirms a clear trend that Reform is on the march. It obviously also reflects recent election results. At the mix of national and local elections in May, Reform secured a new MP, a new Mayor and a raft of new councillors across the country. They received 31 per cent of the vote share in the local elections. Ipsos-Mori's poll merely puts Reform on a slightly higher vote share than they secured several weeks ago in real elections. You must always take polls seriously if they reflect what is coming out in focus groups at the same time. Ed Shackle, Public First's head of qualitative research, confirms this to be the case. All the current momentum is with Reform. He notes that, while you used to get some hesitation from voters about admitting they were considering a Reform vote, this is gone now. People increasingly sense that Reform is surging, and it is exciting to get on the bandwagon. While Reform is surging in less-affluent areas on the coast and in towns and small cities across provincial England, their support is up across the board in the focus groups. They are currently hoovering-up most of the votes of disaffected people across the country. This recent polling result has also come after a wave of stories on issues where Reform is strong: immigration and crime, most notably. For the last few weeks, the media has been awash with stories of grooming gangs, serious crimes alleged to have been committed by asylum-seekers, the continued arrival of small boats, and all the rest. This cannot but help Reform's standing in the polls. While I am personally sceptical of anyone's ability to make a judgement on the national mood based on their own personal, random conversations, when these conversations are entirely in line with the polls, you have to wonder. And the conversations I have with ordinary people in my own personal life confirms that huge numbers of people are seriously thinking about voting for Reform. Overall, then, we should take this poll seriously; Reform is very obviously the most popular party in the country at this moment. But we still have four more years before the next election and an awful lot will change. Above all, given their recent record, it is reasonable to assume Reform will blow themselves up with internal rows and blatant incompetence. If they can make it through to the end of this year in a similar polling position but without a terrible internal trauma, it will be worth taking them very seriously.