The 61-year-old from the United Arab Emirates wrote separately to team leaders and to Stefano Domenicali, the sport's chief executive, outlining his intention to take a more hands-off role.

FIA's director of single-seater racing Nikolas Tombazis will now step up to be the teams' main point of contact.

"My stated objective was to be a non-executive president via the recruitment of a team of professional managers, which has now been largely completed," Ben Sulayem wrote in his letter.

"Therefore, going forward, your day-to-day contact for all matters on F1 will be with Nikolas and his team, while I will focus on strategic matters with my leadership team."

Ben Sulayem's relationship with the 10 F1 teams has become increasingly strained since taking over 12 months ago, and scepticism within the paddock is said to remain in the paddock regarding his reasoning and his commitment to staying in the background.

The FIA still insist that his decision has long been in the pipeline, pointing to the appointment of Natalia Robyn as chief executive last year, but teams question if he jumped before being pushed.

"The President's manifesto clearly set out this plan before he was elected – it pledged 'the appointment of an FIA chief executive to provide an integrated and aligned operation', as well as to 'introduce a revised governance framework' under 'a leadership team focused on transparency, democracy, and growth'", said an FIA spokesperson.

"These goals, as well as the announcement of the new structure of the single-seater department, have been planned since the beginning of this Presidency."

Ben Sulayem was criticised multiple times this year for incidents including the FIA's push to ban drivers wearing jewellery during races and their delay over confirming the expansion from three to six sprint races per season.

Last month, F1 owners Liberty Media wrote a scathing letter to the President after he commented on the value of the championship following a report of a $20 billion (£24 billion/€18.5) from the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, which he said was "an inflated price tag".

In announcing the new application process for new F1 teams, Ben Sulayem stated that the competition's growth was "at unprecedented levels".

Prospective teams are required to pay an initial administration fee of $20,000 (£16,400/€18,500) which will cover the "extensive and thorough due diligence checks that need to be carried out".

"The assessment of each application will cover in particular the technical capabilities and resources of the applicant team, the ability of the team to raise and maintain sufficient funding to allow participation in the Championship at a competitive level and the team’s experience and human resources," read an FIA statement.

"For the first time ever, any candidate would be required to address how it would manage the sustainability challenge and how it plans to achieve a net-zero CO2 impact by 2030.

"Any prospective F1 team would also need to illustrate how they intend to achieve a positive societal impact through its participation in the sport.

"This would help meet the mutual aims of the FIA and Formula One Management."