Mohammed ben Sulayem effectively becomes motorsport's president for life, as governing body sanctions the end of term limits on presidency.

The Emirati, who in FIA communications is now referred to as H.E. (His Excellency), can now continue to tighten his grip on the sport.

"The FIA statutes have been updated to establish a consistent approach to term limits across all FIA bodies, in line with the world councils and the senate," said an FIA spokesperson. "The proposed amendments were approved by a supermajority at the Extraordinary General Assemblies.

"FIA bodies retain full authority to democratically elect officeholders they deem appropriate," they added.

But that's not all, after the debacle of 2025, when Ben Sulayem went unchallenged after other presidential hopefuls either withdrew voluntarily or were ruled out due to the fine print in the statutes, future hopefuls will face even tougher obstacles.

"The eligibility criteria for the president of the FIA have been strengthened and are more in line with the existing eligibility criteria for the other candidates on the Presidential List," read a statement from the FIA.

"The name of the nominations committee has been changed to 'eligibility assessment committee', to ensure better alignment between the body's name and its responsibilities."

While there remains an age limit (70), and Ben Sulayem will not reach that until well into his third term, it is likely that this ruling could also be overturned.

Though there has been no comment from Ben Sulayem himself, it is understood that more than more than 90% of votes were in favour of the proposal.

Easing the process may have been the news that, according to the annual report, in 2025 the FIA showed an operating profit of 6.7m euros (£5.7m), up 43% on 2024 and a significant turnaround following the 24m euro (£20.6m) operating loss of 2021.

There has been no official comment from Ben Sulayem himself, nor from F1.

However, surely there will be murmurings at F1 Towers, for Ben Sulayem, who has crossed swords with both the rights holder and drivers during the opening phase of his presidency will now surely feel even more emboldened, a good example being his defiant stance on his vision for the sport's next regulations overhaul.