FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem said on Friday, October 9, that the UAE has emerged as one of the world's leading destinations for motorsport, pointing to Grand Prix races now hosted across Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Qatar as evidence of how fast the Gulf's motorsport footprint has grown.
Ben Sulayem said the FIA has locked in long-term commercial and strategic agreements spanning Formula One, rallying, endurance racing and Formula E. The Concorde Governance Agreement secures Formula One's regulatory framework through 2030, while the World Endurance Championship partnership with the Automobile Club de l'Ouest has been extended through 2037.
Those deals, alongside an extended Formula E agreement, have reshaped the federation's finances: the FIA moved from a €24 million operating loss to a €6.7 million operating profit, with an additional €20 million gain tied to the Formula E extension.
On the industry's workforce needs, Ben Sulayem said career opportunities in motorsport are now far greater than they used to be. The sport, he argued, increasingly needs engineers, technicians, organisers and data and technology specialists — not just drivers. "The future of motorsport depends on the next generation," he said.
The UAE's growing footprint in global racing, anchored by the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, has also fed into broader investment in motorsport-linked infrastructure and tourism across the country, part of a wider Gulf strategy to position the region as one of the sport's major global centres alongside its established European and American hubs.