The battle for the FIA presidency has taken a twist, with incumbent Mohammed Ben Sulayem on course to be unopposed because it now appears impossible for rivals to qualify to stand against him.
Ben Sulayem is seeking a second term as FIA president in the December 12 vote, and there have been three alternative candidates who have put themselves forward.
Former chief Formula 1 steward Tim Mayer has been campaigning hard since July with his FIA Forward campaign, while in recent weeks two others candidates, Laura Villars and Virginie Philipott, announced that they too intended to join the contest.
The key step needed for anyone wanting to be put on the ballot paper against Ben Sulayem is to ensure that they pull together what is known as the presidential list by an October 24 deadline.
This requirement demands that a candidate for president is put forward alongside a team of 10 other individuals: the president of the senate; the deputy president for automobile mobility and tourism; the deputy president for sport; plus seven vice-presidents for sport.
The seven vice-presidents for sport need to be taken from a list of candidates that the FIA has approved as individuals who are eligible to stand on the World Motor Sport Council.
The chosen seven also must come from a variety of regions. The demand is for there to be one from each of North America, South America, Asia-Pacific, Africa, MENA (Middle East and North Africa), plus two from Europe.
With the FIA having now published its list of the 29 candidates it says are eligible for the World Motor Sport Council, it now appears impossible for anyone other than Ben Sulayem to be able to fulfil the above criteria.
The 29 names include only one from South America, Fabiana Ecclestone from Brazil. She has already pledged her support to be part of Ben Sulayem's team.
So, because election rules stipulate candidates cannot appear on more than one presidential list, there appears no way that anyone else can fulfil the demand of having someone from that region.
Further adding to the complications is that the two candidates from Africa - Rodrigo Rocha from Mozambique, and Amina C Mohamed from Kenya - are also known to be supporters of the current president.
Rocha is alongside Ecclestone - the wife of former F1 supremo Bernie - on Ben Sulayem's Presidential List.
Fight over before vote
While the election battle is still in theory open, if none of Ben Sulayem's rivals can pull together a valid presidential list by October 24 then the door is shut on a contest.
Right now, it seems difficult to see any way that this can happen.
Quite how a situation has emerged where Ben Sulayem's rivals are left without any potential candidates from the WMSC candidate list is unclear at the moment.
Mayer, in particular, through his long experience at the FIA, well knows the demands of the election rules and the requirement to get vice presidents from different regions.
So it will have been highly unlikely that he would not have been in communication with South American clubs to ensure that one of them put themselves forward.
The only possibilities for why none other than Brazil put themselves forward can be that either clubs declined to put WMSC candidates forward, missed the September 19 deadline, or had their applications rejected.
Under the FIA's election rules, the Nominations Committee has the final authority to decide on the eligibility of WMSC candidates.
The process itself has been open since mid-June, so there will have been plenty of time for names to have been put forward and clarifications sought if there were problems.
Election documents stipulate some demands for the WMSC candidate, which is that they are under 75 years of age on the day of the election and that "there must not be anything in the record of each of the candidates for the WMSC that calls into question their professional integrity".
The WMSC candidates also need to come from clubs that comply with demands laid down in the FIA statutes and have at least one competition entered in the 2025 International Sporting Calendar.
Due to FIA election rules, the governing body is unable to offer any more information on the situation because in the interests of neutrality it cannot comment on individual candidates.
