Eight months after being fired by Mohammed Ben Sulayem, Tim Mayer is preparing to run against the incumbent FIA president in the election to be held later this year for the top position at motorsports’ international governing body.
American Mayer has had a varied career in motorsports, operating at high levels in IndyCar, Champ Car, IMSA and the FIA, while he can also list a spell as chairman of the Formula 1 stewards alongside time on the Endurance Commission, the Circuits Commission, the Off-Road Commission and the World Motor Sport Council.
But since November of last year, Mayer has been on the outside of the FIA after he was relieved of his duties by a text message from one of Ben Sulayem’s assistants, having had to represent the United States Grand Prix race organizers in a right of review.
After 34 years in the sport, Mayer said it was time to give back, but also to respond to what he described as the “almost desperation at the state of where we are” from former colleagues within the governing body.
Much of Mayer’s motivation comes from wanting to offer an alternative to Ben Sulayem’s leadership, despite telling RACER that he does so at a time where running for the presidency has been made intentionally more difficult.
“If you look over the last four general assemblies,” he says, “there have been statute changes that have been done that they’ve said, ‘Oh, this is a modernization. This is democratization. This is for the integrity of the FIA.’ And when you look at them holistically over the last four general assemblies, what you will see is that this has been the biggest power grab in the history of the FIA. And it’s all about centralization of power into one office.
“So, yes, it is considerably more difficult, deliberately so. And it’s not in the interest of the members.
“Unfortunately, when you look at each one of these changes individually, as they are presented to the members, each one of them sounds reasonable. But when you look at them as a whole, not so much.”
To his point of the difficulty, Mayer is not announcing the names of some of his key team members yet, noting that it is a disadvantage to do so based on the way the elections are structured.
The 59-year-old makes clear that some of his pledges are similar to Ben Sulayem’s back in 2021, but believes the FIA member clubs have not seen the current president deliver on those promises during a tenure that has so far seen a high level of turnover among senior personnel, and garnered claims of a lack of transparency.
“Mohammed ran on some good ideas: Focusing on the smaller clubs, giving power to the smaller clubs was a good idea,” says Mayer. “The idea of reform at the FIA was a good idea. But what we’ve seen is an illusion. And it’s an illusion of reform. It’s an illusion of integrity.
“We’ve got a situation now where Mohammed has the power to unilaterally dismiss FIA Senate members. Well, the FIA Senate is where the ethics and financial oversight is supposed to happen. So he can unilaterally dismiss people that have been appointed to potentially provide oversight for him. I don’t know any so-called democratic institution where that can be the case.
“We’re looking at transparency, and he ran on transparency, but the reporting back to the members is less transparent than it ever has been.
“He’s run on the idea that the organization should be diverse and include a variety of voices. But almost the entire senior leadership team that he appointed – including, and especially, diverse voices, some extremely competent women – have been pushed out. And why? Because they told him the truth.
“So that’s incredibly problematic. You cannot seriously be talking about diversity, inclusion of diverse voices, and then lose an entire generation of leadership when they say no to you. The FIA is not going to be an effective organization with that management style.”
His days as an F1 steward taught Mayer (at left) that “the most powerful organizations are ones that work as a team.” Jose-Maria Rubio/Sutton Images
