Even since Manor left the Formula 1 grid at the end of the 2016 season, there have been only ten teams making up the grand prix grid over the last six seasons.
That will remain the case heading into 2023 and likely into the next few seasons too, but fans’ hopes of an expanded grid were raised this week when FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem announced the governing body would launch an expressions of interest process to assess potential new entries into Formula 1.Andretti wasted no time in throwing their hat into the ring by announcing they would partner with GM brand Cadillac to launch a bid to enter Formula 1. While Andretti’s interest in wanting to join the world championship was widely known, a tie-up with an American brand like Cadillac appeared to only add further legitimacy to their campaign.
However, with interest in joining Formula 1 for the new power unit formula in 2026 at its highest level since four new teams were granted entries for the 2010 season, there are naturally those inside and outside Formula 1 who are concerned about the viability of any brand new teams who join the grid. Especially as all four new entries for 2010 either collapsed or failed to even make the grid entirely.
So should Formula 1 and the FIA only accept new entries from teams who already have an active racing pedigree in other series or forms of motorsport?
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For
Formula 1 is supposedly the pinnacle of motorsport. However, its history is filled with teams who were granted entries into the sport and struggled to even qualify for races, let alone race. Almost always, none of those teams ever get out of the doldrums and end up falling by the wayside.
If the FIA is serious about expanding the grid, then it needs to ensure that it will do with only with teams that have the resources, the experience and the calibre to compete at a competent level, let alone succeed. It’s no coincidence that Haas, the last new team to join Formula 1, remain on the grid after joining F1 with a history of success in North American motorsport.
With so many formidable teams and manufacturers with racing pedigree racing in other international motorsport series or even junior single-seater formulae, the FIA can limit the risk of any new teams disappearing off the grid after only a handful of seasons by being selective about the teams they select to join Formula 1.
Against
Having an established motorsport pedigree is in no way an guarantor of a successful entry into Formula 1. Back in 2010, Adrian Campos of Campos Racing helped to found the F1 team that would eventually become HRT – which would ultimately be the first of the three new teams that season to fall off the grid. Similarly, Virgin were operated by Manor, but that could not prevent them from a similar fate as HRT, albeit some years later.
It’s also true that Formula 1 is filled with success stories with teams who did not have much racing pedigree before joining the world championship – McLaren, Brabham, Anglo-American Racers (Eagle).
Finally, with so many manufacturers looking at the growth of F1’s popularity and licking their lips at the prospect of joining the grid, the reality is that it is a lot easier to takeover an existing entry than join as a new entrant. Even if a new team struggles, there’s more chance that a team will be taken over by an interested third party than there was when Manor disappeared from the sport.
I say
One of the key factors in this is the matter of the budget cap. In fact, that was the very thing that compelled so many teams to apply to join the grid back before 2010, until the budget cap was removed from the regulations, leaving many of the new teams in a difficult position.
Now, all current teams are actively policed by the budget cap, with many of last year’s team principals stating their belief that the field will only get more competitive over the years ahead as it eventually creates greater parity within the sport. That will only make it more viable than ever for new teams to join F1 without the previous feedback loop of a lack of success leading to a lack of funds which leads to even worse performance until the team inevitably falls into oblivion.
While it would be great to see some well-known racing teams like Andretti entering into the world championship, it should not just be limited to those who have already raced and won in other categories. After all, the great teams in Formula 1 are heralded for what they achieved after they joined the sport, not for what they existed as before they became part of the intense world of grand prix racing.
You say
Do you agree that the FIA should only accept new teams with established racing pedigree into Formula 1?
- No opinion (1%)
- Strongly disagree (41%)
- Slightly disagree (16%)
- Neither agree nor disagree (14%)
- Slightly agree (13%)
- Strongly agree (15%)
Total Voters: 111
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Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
8th January 2023, 13:13
Many current teams had no pedigree, also many teams with “pedigree” are just sponsored by the “pedigree” and not really factory teams.
MichaelN
8th January 2023, 13:22
The claim that F1 is “filled with success stories” of teams is a bit overstated. Most teams in F1 are never competitive for wins and titles. If we look at just the last 10 seasons, Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari won 97.5% of the races. In other words, even most current F1 teams are not competitive, and the only difference between a team like Williams or McLaren and a team like Haas or Andretti is that they were once – decades ago – successful. That’s actually a pro for letting more teams in. If they’re bad, they won’t be different from the majority of current teams. And if they’re good, it will improve F1. So letting new teams in is fine.
Better still would be to further, and aggressively, further reduce the budget cap and expand its scope to currently exempt parts of the organizations, including engines and salaries.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
8th January 2023, 13:41
You say that until you realize that cars could be several seconds a lap off the pace of the currently slowest team and still qualify for the Grand Prix.
Which IMHO presents a real potential downside to letting someone just buy into the existing revenue streams.
MichaelN
8th January 2023, 16:32
@proesterchen The 107% time at the latest race was almost 4 seconds slower than the slowest Williams was, and that indeed leaves a lot of room for even slower teams. So there’s a case to be made that the 107% rule is outdated, and needs tightening up to reflect the higher standards of modern F1 compared to the early 1980s.
Still, whether a team is 6, 4 or even 2 seconds off the pace is ultimately somewhat arbitrary. None of them are going to win races, and in terms of entertainment (as with the 2010 entries) it’s not even a big deal as long as there are other teams near them on pace. Besides, if being uncompetitive would be a reason to reject teams and prevent them from taking a cut of F1’s revenue then half the grid might as well be booted out.
AlanD
8th January 2023, 20:31
Michael, I think a lot of people talk about the 107% rule as if it is a scientifically calculated value that means something. As you say, cars today can be inside the 107% mark by four seconds and still look painfully slow.
As far as I recall, back in 1995 they looked at the gaps down at the bottom end of the field and decided that using the lap times of that era, 107% wouldn’t affect the top teams at all but would allow them to eliminate the really slow cars whilst pretending that it was somehow objective and nothing personal. Why they still use 107% as the benchmark in 28 years later is a mystery.
You could also have the idiotic situation that one car goes out and gets in a fast lap just before it starts raining, and then a dozen cars exceed the 107% limit, so they have to have a contingency clause that basically says the rule can be waived if it is inconveient. A better alternative would be to allow more teams into the mix, but to only allow the top 20 qualifiers onto the starting grid, regardless of what percentage of pole that is.
Whether you use the 107% rule, or the top 20 rule, or whatever, letting in more teams creates another problem. F1 cars are surprisingly large, so they need a big pit box. Some circuits would struggle to fit in more than a dozen F1 sized pit boxes, so that limits how many teams they can have on the grid, or it means more expense for circuits, building ever longer pit lanes to comply with F1 standards.
grat
8th January 2023, 21:29
If you continue to reduce the budget cap, you risk destroying the fundamental DNA as it were, of what has made F1 great.
You eliminate the difference between F1 and series such as IndyCar– IndyCar is a fantastic racing series, but it’s a far cry from what Formula 1 used to be before the screams for parity and cost reduction resulted in our current heavily segregated grid.
What we need is not further cost reduction, but stability of rules. Even in the new era, the 15mm floor height increase is actually a major change. From 2009 to 2020, I think there were only two seasons that didn’t require significant redesign due to chassis or aero rules changes. That’s murder to smaller teams– not only do they not have the finances to continuously reiterate their designs, they don’t have the depth of engineering that Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes have. Even with the cap, those teams have the best of the best of the engineering talent.
Finally, more teams will provide more opportunities for drivers and engineers in the new cost cap environment. With the cost cap, there are substantially fewer engineering jobs available, and of course, the driver market has been saturated with mature, experienced drivers at the cost of new drivers for some time.
S
9th January 2023, 0:53
Interesting that most of your comment actually disproves your opening statement.
Go back 40 or 50 years when there was not only not budget cap, but also very much more open rules. Most teams were bringing completely new cars every season or two, because although the rules weren’t changing, the understanding and creativity of the engineering was.
I’d also point out that $100m+ is way more than enough to build a completely new car every season, and regardless of how much money is spent some teams will always do it better than others. The stricter the rules are, the less scope there is for someone to achieve comparable performance in a different way – or even in the same way, for that matter, as the development scope is quite linear.
Red Pill (@redpill)
9th January 2023, 6:55
To: S
Actually grat does makes some valid points and what your describing “narrowing scope” and reducing more budget is more comparable to one-design racing like Indy. We something more in the middle and not forget what F1 roots are.
The fundamental DNA of F1 has greatly diminished but there’s a bunch of reasons for that due to economics and extreme’s that some people/teams are willing to do.
I do think a budget cap is good but not too low, F1 has to remain the pinnacle of mororacing. I believe F1 can now reduce a lot of rules that were made before budget cap rule to prevent teams from spending crazy amounts of money spending and reducing the arms war. Now with the budget cap and very strict monitoring of spending, F1 should review those rules to open development up among the teams. This would bring back of some of the old F1 DNA.
What we don’t want is another Indy series, (nothing against Indy), FE. F1 was special in that it developed and created new and advanced unique machinery; the F1 platform needs to keep that alive.
With the budget cap, teams can no longer throw a million ideas at it at any cost and see what sticks, even the wealthy teams will need to be more selective like a lower budget team.
Having said all that, any new team wanting to join should be vetted and apply with open books to see if they’re just hubris dreamers or hopefully an organization with solidified guaranteed monies to invest properly in what it takes to race competitively in F1 for the long term, not just show up with a prayer, fake it till you make it and hope for the best. There was a lot that in the past, many teams often getting lapped, going bankrupt. That’s not what F1 needs to introduce to the current racing.
S
9th January 2023, 8:19
It’s descriptive of any series which limits their technical regulations to one or very few design options. Which F1 does, @redpill.
F1 has made their choice about how teams should save money, and that is by telling them what to make and how to make it – with minimal or zero independent creativity and development allowed.
That is the opposite of what a budget is typically for, and is the sole reason why there is a marked reduction in technical diversity in F1.
It is not at all about how much money teams can spend.
F1 could be the most technically diverse racing series in the world today without spending any more at all. In fact, they could do it while spending a lot less. They just don’t want to.
And they could even additionally be among the most tightly competitive if they felt like it. But no….
It should make absolutely no difference to you if a team comes in, has a terrible few years and then disappears. It does not harm F1 as a series in any way either. If anything it improves it, showing just how hard it can be and what a great job the other teams do.
I do find it fascinating that some people actually believe that a good proposition on paper is substantially better than the potential reality that may follow. Lots of things (including in F1) have seemed like gold on paper, but fell to tatters in reality – just as often as the opposite is true too.
On paper, how many championships should Ferrari have won by now? Probably at least 40 of them….
And who was picking Brawn GP as a championship winner prior to winter testing that year? Anyone?
You just don’t know for sure until you let them in and see how they go.
Mark in Florida
10th January 2023, 1:34
S , there is a caveat to the Brawn team. When Brawn took over, Honda had developed two cars and Brawn picked the one that showed the most promise, the one with the double diffusers. He also got 100 million from Honda plus an engine deal from Mercedes. His main obstacle was in fitting the new engine in place of the Honda. Most new F1 teams didnt have this much of a head start as Brawn did. Just having Ross Brawn as a team principal is an unfair advantage in and of itself.
SjaakFoo (@sjaakfoo)
8th January 2023, 13:27
To be successful in F1 you don’t need pedigree, that is utterly worthless. What you need is strong financing over a long period of time. Only investment can get you long term competitiveness. Where that money ultimately comes from is unlikely to be a factor.
Steve (@duuxdeluxe)
8th January 2023, 13:33
I mean, ‘racing pedigree’ is, as you say, not something that was present in some teams before they found their way to the top. One could argue that Red Bull is also an example. Yes, they were Jaguar before that, but I mean: you buy a team for (alledgedly) 1 dollar and you make a sugary drink. How is that worse than the producer of industrial tooling (Haas), clothing (Benetton, Alpha Tauri, albeit those two rose from the ashes of ‘proper’ teams) or just slapping a badge onto something entirely different (Alfa Romeo on basically a Sauber)?
One could argue Alfa Romeo has more racing pedigree than Red Bull, but they haven’t been able to translate that into proper results. Neither has a team like Renault. So having that pedigree is by no means a guarantee for succes. However, I like to think that a team such a Renault holds itself to higher standards than a buy-in team such as Haas. They survive, whereas I honestly believe Renault wants to produce results.
The question is whether Formula 1 can be picky enough to demand racing pedigree and in what form. Sure, Andretti knows what he’s doing, but slapping a caddy sticker onto a Honda/Renault/whatever PU isn’t that great. Not to mention they know what they’re doing in entirely different classes of autosport. Whether that experience is actually useful is a big question mark. For all we know they come into F1 with entirely different expectations (strategy-wise, simulations, simulators etc). Might even be that a fresh team without any racing backgrounds comes in on a much more realistic level.
Regardless: I’d say allow 2 more teams on the grid so we can have some proper rookies being bought onto the grid again and not have this locked driver market where talents can’t find their way onto.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
8th January 2023, 13:36
I disagree, branding deals are not an indication of legitimacy.
As for racing pedigree, it’s simply not applicable as no other series anyone could have competed in before wanting to enter Formula 1 has even remotely the same requirements.
So I’m with @sjaakfoo, you don’t need pedigree, you need about a billion dollars just for the first 5-6 years of building the facilities and running the racing team, and preferably a desire to actually compete.
T
8th January 2023, 14:04
if I’m permitted to provide a differing (unique) opinion:
I really don’t have a problem with andretti on the grid per se,
It’s just the brash methodology (and the consequences of said methodology) they employed (at least in the very beginning) has been very off putting and thus has led me personally to be overtly critical of their process and entry as opposed to prior entries who I frankly didn’t care about or was wooed into backing. For example:
A lot appear to be of the opinion Cadillac is manufacture backing.
I disagree. From the press releases and quotes I’ve read this appears to be a title sponsorship, a branding exercise so GM can shoehorn Cadillac into the same conversations as Mercedes and Audi on the global stage – their direct competitors as GM begins plans to reintroduce itself to the European market. Even in the most optimistic of extrapolations I could muster, INEOS, just by virtue of owning a third of Mercedes F1 and seemingly threatening to own more would be directly and actively contributing to F1 more so than Cadillac, I would love to be wrong here but that’s how I’m seeing it right now. Throw in the likes of PETRONAS and SHELL and my argument becomes stronger and FOM’s stance becomes clearer. FOM asked for purple and andretti brought violet, I’m not surprised they’re none too enthusiastic about it.
S
8th January 2023, 14:37
GM is ‘in the same conversations as Mercedes and Audi on the global stage’ – is there some reason why you don’t think they are?
In terms of branding, both Mercedes and Audi are also brands owned and operated by multi-national corporations that go by another name. They all have significant market presence in multiple markets and even on multiple continents.
Using the Cadillac brand is merely for targeting a specific market – their own, which makes perfect sense given the expansion that F1 is making in the US. They can’t use GM, can they? What can anyone buy with that brand on it?
Their ‘financial only’ approach is exactly the same as Alfa Romeo are doing with Sauber – and also essentially the same as Aston Martin, who also have no actual technical connection with the race team that bears their brand.
Are they? Why? Because their financial interest is higher?
They are (or would be) both using F1 for the exact same purpose. The same one that every other brand uses it for.
FOM asked for a manufacturer – Andretti supplied one. One of the largest in the world.
They may not make an F1 engine, but they bring financial clout and huge marketing pull in many parts of the world. Just like Alfa Romeo and Aston Martin – though likely more of the marketing aspect than both of those two combined.
T
8th January 2023, 15:47
effectively non existent sales numbers in the target market, GM’s very own words and plans to ramping up EU presence? This isn’t a theory I concocted, this is reality, this is what’s happening…right now. In their own backyard, a type r has more mind presence than a blackwing. You can be as mad as you want about those words but that changes nothing.
So, we agree? That’s pretty much what I said isn’t it? It’s a branding exercise
I’ve been utterly disappointed with Alfa Romeo/Sauber collaboration and I simply cannot express enough, my elation about Audi finally actually providing manufacturer backing. Once again, we agree: manufacturer backing MEANS something deeper than a branding exercise. Lawrence stroll owns shares and is executive chairman of the entire Aston Martin Lagonda entity and is hosing literal billions of dollars at Aston’s f1 namesake. I’ll happily admit it’s an unorthodox approach to manufacturer backing but it’s providing exponential dividends to the sport and the entry itself has never enjoyed as much it is entire existence
No, because of how openly temperamental and volatile Daimler AG has been with respect to it’s ownership of the f1 entry in conjunction with Wolff’s (another partial owner) open acknowledgement of an eventual exit from the team. Ineos is quite literally and figuratively that entry’s line of hope in a doomsday circumstance. Do you follow this sport?
Once more we inadvertently agree…
Cheers mate!
T
9th January 2023, 8:16
post it, mods
T
10th January 2023, 11:33
Thanks!
The Edge (@the-edge)
8th January 2023, 14:11
Come and have a go, if you think your hard enough…
Failure shows how good the other teams are… even Williams
If people want to throw their money away, it’s their choice, it gives progression to race car drivers at the very least
There simply is NO downside to new teams, whoever they are
elchinero (@elchinero)
8th January 2023, 14:44
“There simply is NO downside to new teams”
Ain’t that the troot! Hey, Qatar was in the WC!
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
8th January 2023, 15:00
Yes, there is.
They can be total crap, yet still take a significant part of the revenues generated by Formula 1. Just leeching in the last row.
S
8th January 2023, 15:38
May I ask if you think any of the existing teams are… to use your own words:
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
8th January 2023, 16:34
There are several current teams I would describe as crap, hopeless, and even not seriously interested in competing in F1.
It’s just that there’s unfortunately a lot of fertile ground to be explored between today’s slowest teams and the absolute minimum viable product one could imagine.
S
9th January 2023, 0:58
I have terrible news for you. Not everyone enters F1 solely to win.
They’d certainly like to, of course, but it isn’t their only reason for being there.
If some teams are satisfied with being little more than a mobile billboard, then how is that your problem and why are you so passionate about it?
F1 has never had much competitive depth, and I don’t see why anyone would think it would start now.
MichaelN
8th January 2023, 16:38
@proesterchen By that standards, so is Dorilton – and that’s arguably worse as they’re hiding behind the historic name of a team that has a respectable record in F1. And further ahead from the last row, teams like Red Bull Jr., “Alfa Romeo” (Sauber), Haas and Aston Martin have achieved very little indeed.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
8th January 2023, 17:04
Oh great, thanks, now you have me defending Dorilton F1:
Their slower driver was off the pace by a mere 1.5% in Abu Dhabi qualifying, which is a significant improvement over their form a couple of years ago.
S
9th January 2023, 1:02
Yet your previous argument is essentially that they shouldn’t have been in F1 at all.
I guess the same goes for McLaren a few years ago too.
And even Honda’s own team for a while before that, which later became utterly dominant with a new badge attached to it.
At which point do you admit that that’s just the way F1 is and always will be?
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
9th January 2023, 9:58
My argument is that claiming there is no downside is at best a result of a lack of imagination.
That you can do a whole lot worse than the currently slowest team and still participate in the full race weekend and presumably share in the revenues generated by the work put in by others.
S
9th January 2023, 11:07
The opposite can be true too – did you consider that in your imagination? That’s how opinions work.
I’d suggest that, on balance, the positives of any team entering outweigh the negatives. Especially one with such long-term industry credibility behind it.
Yes – and it works the other way too. All the other teams will be receiving a benefit from the addition of the new team/s.
Will it balance out in a year or two? Unlikely, but so what? Unless some of the existing teams intend on bailing out in that time, they’ll also be getting a net profit in the long term.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
9th January 2023, 11:29
I would have, had the original comment claimed there was no upside.
Which it did not.
S
9th January 2023, 11:35
So you lacked imagination….
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
9th January 2023, 11:39
I replied to a comment.
I’ve found it useful and prudent to reply to claims actually made in a comment, rather than attacking figments of anyone’s imagination.
S
8th January 2023, 14:58
Of course it doesn’t matter if the team has racing heritage. Having deep pockets and a willingness to spend your money in F1 does.
How much racing heritage did Red Bull have behind them when purchasing not one but two teams? Practically none – and certainly not at such a high level. Their massive spending bought key staff in from other teams.
The examples given of McLaren and Brabham are a bit misleading, as both were created by active F1 drivers (both with engineering backgrounds) at a time where money wasn’t such an important factor as it is now.
One question I have is why anyone would think that it’s a particularly bad thing if a team enters, performs poorly and then leaves shortly after?
It’s only bad for that team…. F1 itself is much bigger and stronger than that.
Fact is that we’ll never know how good a team is in F1 if they aren’t allowed in to compete in the first place.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
8th January 2023, 15:06
Why would they leave? The entry itself is worth hundreds of millions right from the get-go. They presumably get a share of the revenues even if they barely manage to keep it under 107%. PU contracts are capped.
Life’s good once you’re in F1.
S
8th January 2023, 15:33
Right – so why are you so worried about the other teams losing a measly 10%?
The growth in the US will compensate for much of that in the coming years anyway.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
8th January 2023, 16:43
That’s the wrong stick to measure against, though.
The financial question is whether a new team can increase growth by enough over what the current makeup of Formula 1 would generate so that additional revenues surpass the share said new team would take.
Just to put the enormity of that task into perspective: We’re talking about adding multiple dictatorship-level hosting fees that could somehow not be signed by the current 10-team-F1, or at least a quintupling of the US TV rights fees in the next licensing period.
S
9th January 2023, 1:08
Not really, when we are talking about an American team bringing with them an American automotive manufacturer’s brand.
The wrong thing to be considering is whether a new team brings more money to the existing ones at all.
It is supposed to be a competition – even if not a sporting one.
This makes it 100% a collusion.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
9th January 2023, 9:43
Yes, really.
Either they add enough to the growth of Formula 1, above and beyond what it would be in its current form, to cover the revenues they leech from the team’s price pool or they don’t.
And as I outlined in my previous post, that’s a truly staggering task that I have grave doubts Mr Andretti could successfully accomplish, likely leaving all existing teams not just diluted in value, but also poorer in terms of revenues from the sport they helped building for years and years.
S
9th January 2023, 11:26
Does Mercedes? Does Red Bull? Does Ferrari?
How about McLaren? I’m assuming you don’t think that Alpine, Haas, Williams, Sauber, Aston Martin and Alpha Tauri do.
And under what time frame? 1 year? 3 years? 10 years? How do you quantify who is worth what in F1?
Just how much would each team franchise be worth if all the “total crap” ones weren’t there at all, leaving just those big 3 teams?
How much would F1’s value plunge even if it lost just one of them? Not much, I think you’d agree.
Do you see the value of the others now?
F1 is bigger than all of them individually AND combined.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
9th January 2023, 11:33
By the day the new team’s anti-dilution payment stops covering the lost revenue share for everyone else.
S
9th January 2023, 11:36
One year…?
You must be joking.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
9th January 2023, 11:41
I think the 200 million should cover significantly more than one year of reduced revenue shares.
S
9th January 2023, 11:43
Budget period in F1 is one year….
That’s all that counts.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
9th January 2023, 11:48
If that’s your opinion, be my guest.
I’ve been clear where I’d personally draw the line.
Roger Ayles (@roger-ayles)
8th January 2023, 14:58
If you have the money to put together facilities & staff that allow you to design & build a car that meets the regulations and if you can sign 2 drivers to race it & are able to turn upto every GP & qualify then you should be allowed an entry to compete.
As F1 has become more professional, More corporate & more about the show I feel like it’s lost some of the passion & heart we used to get from small independent teams who turned up out of a love for the sport rather than to promote a brand or simply make money.
I appreciate the manufacturers and what they can bring but I miss teams like Minardi, Tyrrell, Ligier, Jordan, Arrows etc… who were there because the respective owners had a true passion for the sport. And i’m not saying that people running the teams now don’t have any passion because I think they do but it just doesn’t come across because everything has become buried behind the corporate business micro-managed image.
The more I go back and watch F1 from the past the more I realise how heartless & sterile it has become.
Apophis (@apophisjj)
8th January 2023, 15:33
“Everybody loves a good underdog story”. Not anymore I guess…
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
8th January 2023, 16:45
I don’t think a bunch of people with hundreds of millions of dollars in investment capital play well as underdogs.
S
9th January 2023, 8:23
Unless they are compared with bunches of people with billions of dollars in investment capital….
SteveP
8th January 2023, 16:00
Everyone seems worried about the quality of the teams that might turn up on a race weekend.
There’s an old rule they had about 107% of pole…
Apply that, with whatever % seems to fit the requirements. If that % is clipping on the heels of the current #10 team, then it’s probably about right.
Add in that the team have no appearance money if they don’t appear on the start list – I’d say “on the grid” but that has impact on pit-lane starts.
If any team fail to measure up, the only thing they get out of the weekend is negative publicity.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
8th January 2023, 16:55
2022 Abu Dhabi GP – Q – Q1 fastest time – VER – 1:24.754
2022 Abu Dhabi GP – Q – Q1 slowest time – LAT – 1:26.054 + 1.3s / +1.5%
2022 Abu Dhabi GP – Q – 107% time – 1:30.687 + 5.933s / +7%
A driver could have been 4.5s a lap slower than Nicky and still be allowed to participate in the 2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
SteveP
8th January 2023, 18:38
I did say:
also
I think 104% or 105% is probably a better mark. You do have to select it to match the current bottom plus a small bit, or the new entries would most definitely whinge more than Horner.
Jere (@jerejj)
8th January 2023, 16:20
I went for ‘Neither agree nor disagree’ as I don’t really have a strong view either way.
Alex Capps
8th January 2023, 16:49
The Championship was just won by “an energy drink company”. the only restrictions for entering the sport should be 1. Do you have the cash for an entire season? 2. Do you have a facility or a plan to acquire one? 3. can you have a car ready to go by the first test date of the season you wish to enter? if you answered yes to these questions welcome to formula 1
F1 frog (@f1frog)
8th January 2023, 16:57
There is no reason not to let a team in, extra teams always add value to the sport, even if they are terrible, because then it’s amazing when they get a freak good result, and if there are multiple bad teams it’s like having an extra race at the back. If there were 40 cars with pre-qualifying to limit them to 26 that would be fantastic.
It would be disgraceful if any team is barred entry to Formula 1 because the other teams don’t think they add value.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
8th January 2023, 17:13
Every new entrant is taking away money from existing teams. You know, the ones who put in the work and put on a show for years (or decades) to generate these revenues in the first place.
It was all much simpler in the Bernie days when team #11 and up simply didn’t participate in the largest piece of revenue and merely received travel costs and the like. At least then there was an incentive for teams to be no worse than 10th.
With liberty, you get 10s of millions of dollars with your participation trophy.
Aaa123
8th January 2023, 21:59
But all those teams started somewhere. Ferrari was Alfa Romeo’s boy before he was ever much of anything else. Bruce McLaren was a kiwi trying his luck in blighty. Of course those were different times but the axiom cannot change, everything and everyone must start somewhere.
The fact that there’s even a debate about this is infuriating, as are “fans” talking about team revenue as if that were of any import whatsoever to the person watching at home.
Is everyone a virtual stock holder now?
S
9th January 2023, 1:12
There’s really only one person here defending the pure, raw greed of the other teams.
Even defending the concept of ‘first in – best dressed.’
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
9th January 2023, 9:53
Yes, and there was no pre-existing $2+ billion revenue stream to tap into. And no Concorde Agreement to delineate how teams are participating in that revenue stream.
Mr Andretti didn’t succeed in buying a seat at the table, and now he’s banging on the front door, now fresh with fancy cap reading Cadillac, trying to get invited and wondering why everyone already at the table isn’t enthusiastically sharing their spoils with him.
S
9th January 2023, 11:33
There were indeed Concorde Agreements in place when other current teams entered.
Okay, now I’m intrigued.
Which team do you work for?
To be this protective of one of F1’s biggest deliberate shortcomings means you must have a vested interest.
The only other people who want it that way certainly do.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
9th January 2023, 11:35
Not when Ferrari entered (either way), nor when Bruce McLaren founded his own team.
Which were the examples cited in the comment I replied to.
S
9th January 2023, 11:41
You seem to have forgotten that the reference above (which you made) was about all the teams who were aiming to be no worse than 11th.
That’s where this:
Comes from.
Proesterchen (@proesterchen)
9th January 2023, 11:43
No, that refers to the
part of my comment.
Neil (@neilosjames)
8th January 2023, 17:38
I’ll admit I’m tending towards a more favourable view of Andretti’s entry simply because it says ‘Andretti’ on it. As a motorsport fan I view that name in a positive light.
But with my rational hat on I don’t think the name brings with it any increased probability of success. I’ve seen lots of big names appear in the pit lane, fail and tootle off sharpish in spite of their rich motorsport pedigree (Lola, Ford/Jaguar, Toyota to name a few)… and others roll up every now and then and seemingly spin a roulette wheel to see if they’ll be any good (Renault, Honda). Then others who have the racing pedigree but couldn’t survive in the modern big league (Brabham, Tyrrell, Jordan, Manor, Lotus… Williams and Sauber too, perhaps).
The only teams with pedigree and success in the last 30 years have been Williams, McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes and a third of the multiple Renault visitations. And three of the five have been off the pace for at least a decade, while an energy drink manufacturer has been in the championship top three in 13 of the last 14 seasons.
So for me, no, previous pedigree shouldn’t really play a role outside of the emotional corner of a fan’s brain. If you’re committed enough and funded enough, I don’t care if you’re Prema or BMW or Hyundai or Calvin Lo or the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund… welcome aboard.
Mioki (@okif1)
8th January 2023, 18:27
Endogamy has never been good for anything.
Crawliin-from-the-wreckage (@davedai)
11th January 2023, 3:16
@okif1
Well in the long run perhaps for plastic surgeons
DavidS (@davids)
9th January 2023, 5:48
Strongly agree.
I’m surprised so many people disagree. Maybe the word pedigree is confusing. It’s not “being a car brand with a history in motorsport,” it’s any team with experience and success in motorsport.
For a team to survive, they need both good financing and competence. A team without racing experience would have to build that competence from scratch, whereas a team coming over from another series will have the necessary ‘infrastructure’ in place. Infrastructure not just being the factory and the equipment, but the management structures, the support departments and the business processes.
For example, the team needs a marketing department to set up the sponsorship agreements. It is much easier for an already existing marketing function to approach their current sponsors and sponsorship contacts and say “hey, we are going into F1, you interested in kicking things up a notch” than it is to be a completely new company with no track-record cold-calling the kind of companies with the required financial capability.
Any motorsport team that can court a billionaire, or a billionaire acknowledging that they need to buy an experienced team is far better suited to a billionaire thinking they can do it all from scratch.
Jason (@jasonj)
9th January 2023, 6:46
New teams = renewed interest. I don’t care about ‘racing pedigree’ or ‘diluting value’ for current teams. I’d enjoy 6 new teams coming in, that would add excitement and possibilities to the grid. I enjoy F1, but I rarely care solely who the winner is, because it’s predictable for most of the past decade. More teams would mean more interest.
I see comments above that are concerned with money for existing teams, budget caps etc – I couldn’t care less about how much a team makes or spends, I’m here for on track action, I don’t care if Mercedes spend 6 billion or 6 hundred, that’s their business, my role is as a spectator, not their accountant, so the fascination or concern over dilution of revenue share is puzzling.
Global VIP Luxury
9th January 2023, 7:19
I think it’s more interesting to bring in an underdog. mix things up a bit.
SteveR
9th January 2023, 17:52
I’m curious and address this comment to the constant nay sayer. If the application for entry were ‘Penske’ instead of ‘Andretti’ would it get your royal seal of approval?
kcrossle (@kcrossle)
10th January 2023, 5:06
Based on this “rationale” we should only have Alfa, Maserati, Talbot Largo, ERA, and Alta on the grid (basis – the first F1 race. 1950).
Clearly that is silly. As is the argument that only existing entrants have a rightt to compete.
M
11th January 2023, 5:15
Make it simple.
a) The top ten existing F1 teams from the last qualifying session are automatically entered in to Saturday qualifying.
b) ANY team can enter a car in to (the new) Friday pre-qualifying. A minimum lap time must also be achieved. The top three teams (combined cars) get to be part of Saturday qualifying.