Born and raised in the UK to American parents, FIA presidential candidate Tim Mayer worked with the governing body between 2009 and 2024, but his connections with motor racing go much deeper than that.
His father Teddy Mayer, who died in 2007, was one of the driving forces behind McLaren for almost two decades. From the company’s foundation in 1963, Mayer Sr provided the business acumen and lawyerly smarts, then took over the running of the business after Bruce McLaren’s death in 1970.
Mayer Jr was born in February 1966, just as his father and McLaren were scrambling to find an engine supplier for the team’s first F1 car.
Tim Mayer went on to study at Wellington College, a public school in Berkshire that has produced many world-class rugby players, before completing his studies in the US and enlisting in the army.
He returned to the world of motorsport in 1992 when former McLaren driver Emerson Fittipaldi tapped him up to become his general business manager. The attraction, Mayer would say later, was that Fittipaldi was tapering his racing career while he developed many other business interests.
After two years of working with the Brazilian, Mayer branched off on his own and founded G3 Communications, a consultancy company that was involved in the international broadcast of Champ Car races. This led to managerial roles in the series itself, and latterly a role as chief operating officer of IMSA in the mid-2000s.
At the end of the decade, Mayer returned to consultancy work and became a director of the Automobile Competition Committee for the United States, the body that acts as the official conduit between the FIA and the US race-sanctioning bodies. This side role grew into a position that was responsible for organising all world championship races on US soil.
In parallel, Mayer joined the FIA’s roster of race stewards – officiating not just at F1 grands prix, but also at the likes of World Endurance Championship and World Touring Car Championship rounds. This being an unpaid position, he maintained his consultancy work and this is what, ultimately, brought him into conflict with motorsport's governing body.
Last year, Mayer was on the stewards’ panel at the US Grand Prix, which found the organiser had “failed to take reasonable measures, thus resulting in an unsafe condition” after a post-race track invasion. But, independently of his role as a steward, he subsequently represented the organiser – US Race Management – when it sought a right of review of the €500,000 fine and the key claim that it had failed to take reasonable measures to avoid the incursion.
Shortly afterwards, on the eve of the Qatar Grand Prix, Mayer was dismissed from his role as a steward – via a text message from a functionary rather than by president Mohammed Ben Sulayem himself, he claimed. Motorsport.com understands that Ben Sulayem regarded Mayer’s representation of the US GP organiser as a conflict of interest with the neutral role of a steward.
"For a federation that relies on volunteers, to fire by text somebody who has made a significant contribution does not speak well of the management of the federation," Mayer said afterwards.
Launching his bid for the presidency ahead of the British Grand Prix last week, Mayer claimed he was running not to exact retribution for his sacking, but to improve the governance of the FIA. Critics of the current regime highlight a lack of transparency and the centralisation of power under the president.
“It’s not about revenge,” Mayer said. “It’s about how we can drive the FIA forward.”
