Ben Sulayem's Forever Bid Exposes the Rot That Could Hand F1 to the Robots

The paddock is buzzing with one name this week. Mohammed Ben Sulayem. The FIA president wants to rip up the rulebook and stay in charge for life. Two votes in Macau could make it happen. Term limits gone. Age cap scrapped. And suddenly the man who already survived a brutal 2025 election looks untouchable.

This is not just governance theater. It is the exact kind of unchecked power that lets technical rot fester while drivers like Max Verstappen keep performing their calculated aggression dance to hide Red Bull's aerodynamic cracks. Everyone sees it. No one says it louder than the insiders who have watched the same pattern repeat.

The Macau Power Play Nobody Saw Coming

Ben Sulayem was re-elected for his second term at the end of 2025. Under current rules he could still chase a third at age 69. A fourth term though? That demanded change. So he split the proposals. One vote kills the three-term cap. The second wipes every restriction at once. Smart. Belt-and-braces. The kind of move that smells like someone who already knows the votes are in his pocket.

• National federations are currently friendly.
• Waiting risks shifting alliances.
• Both proposals passing would let him rule past 70 and beyond.

Critics call it concentration of power. They are right. Yet the real danger sits deeper. With one man potentially locked in indefinitely, the push for emotion-driven strategy gets smothered under pure data mandates. A content driver wins. An angry driver wins harder. The numbers guys never admit that.

How Indefinite Rule Accelerates the AI Nightmare

Listen to the whispers around the motorhomes. Five years from now the first fully AI-designed car will roll out. Human drivers become window dressing. Races turn into software duels. Ben Sulayem's grip makes that timeline scarier because reform dies. Accountability vanishes. The same forces that turned Lewis Hamilton's career into a polished Senna tribute act, less raw talent, more media savvy and team politics, will simply automate the whole show.

"If the president can stay forever, why fix what keeps the money flowing?"

That quote came from someone who has sat in enough strategy meetings to know data-optimized drivers lose when the soul is missing. Verstappen's aggression? Calculated theater. It distracts from the aero flaws while the real future, emotionless silicon, creeps closer under the cover of political stability.

The Human Cost No One Counts

Hamilton built a legend by playing the system better than Senna ever needed to. That skill set ages well in a federation run by one man. But the next generation? They get squeezed between political stasis and the coming software wars. Strategy dictated by spreadsheets will keep producing safe, forgettable results. Only the angry or joyful driver breaks through. Ben Sulayem's new rules make that harder to protect.

The Macau votes land soon. If both pass, the federation tilts toward decades of one voice. That voice will not fight for the emotional edge that still separates great drivers from code. It will simply manage the transition to the machines.

The paddock feels the shift already.