Ben Sulayem talks about Carlos Sainz Sr
Last year, for a few weeks, motorsport fans savored the idea of having Carlos Sainz father as the new president of the FIA. A candidacy, that of the WRC legend still active and a protagonist at almost 65 years old in the Dakar and the Rally Raid world championship, which then faded once it became clear that truly challenging Mohammed Ben Sulayem would be almost impossible, also due to controversial rules that effectively eliminated the competition even before the vote.
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On the occasion of the Paraguay rally, the president of the International Automobile Federation returned to talk about his former challenger in the last elections for Place de la Concorde, in an interview granted to the Spanish-language daily, AS: “Carlos Sainz is a dear friend, but I think he didn’t understand. Obviously, he knows the FIA and the sport better than anyone else, but the presidency of the International Federation is not only about sport. It is also about mobility, meetings with the business world, with 245 members from all over the world. It is 365 days a year of nonstop work without receiving anything in return.”
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The controversies after the last FIA elections
“I had already been ten years in my country’s federation and I already knew how difficult this role was, because you have to work all day,” Mohammed Ben Sulayem then concluded. The Emirati, who will turn 65 next November 12, was reconfirmed for a second term at the end of 2025 presenting himself as the only candidate after all other opponents withdrew from the race due to some missing bureaucratic requirements in the presentation of the governing teams. At the beginning of summer, there was then the removal from the FIA statute of the three-term limit which could theoretically allow him to keep presidential power for life, or almost.
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