More new F1 team bids expected but process will take “several months”

2023 F1 season

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Yesterday’s announcement from Andretti and Cadillac that they intend to submit an entry to compete in Formula 1 is expected to be the first of several.

An F1 spokesperson said yesterday there is “great interest” in the series at the moment. However it is unlikely any new teams will arrive before 2026, when F1 will introduce new power unit rules and changes to the chassis regulations.

In addition to the Andretti-Cadillac entry, other potential entrants have emerged in recent years.

Former SMP Racing managing director Benjamin Durand founded a project with Michael Orts called Panthera Team Asia F1, details of which emerged in 2019. The pair set up a temporary headquarters at Silverstone and brought former F1 designer Tim Milne on board. They originally hoped to enter F1 when new technical regulations were introduced in 2021, but these were postponed by a year due to the pandemic, and the FIA did not commence a tender process for new team to enter.

Another new F1 hopeful emerged during 2019. Monaco Increase Management Group CEO Salvatore Gandolfo announced plans to enter under the name Monaco F1 Racing Team. The team was to use the facilities of junior formula team Campos and MIM-run drivers Pascal Wehrlein and Alex Palou were named as potential drivers.

More recently Canadian billionaire and motorsports fan Calvin Lo has spoken of his desire to set up an F1 team.

For now all potential entrants are awaiting further details of the entry procedure FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem indicated would take place earlier this week.

“The FIA is exploring the Expressions of Interest process and we will provide a further update in the near future,” Ben Sulayem said yesterday. “Any Expressions of Interest process will follow strict FIA protocol and will take several months.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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22 comments on “More new F1 team bids expected but process will take “several months””

  1. Yeah, it probably will take “several months” to negotiate sufficient bonuses and concessions for all the existing teams (especially the big ones) to get them to accept a new entry.
    And then they’ll all say how great it is that there’s a new team and that it shows how strong and healthy F1 is. And welcoming to new teams, of course. Don’t forget welcoming…

  2. Let them all in, and bring back pre-qualifying.

    1. Let them all in, and bring back Andrea Moda

    2. A Meritocracy?

      The FIA will be more interested in feathering their own nest with a Plutocracy.

      1. A competitive pre-qualifying session would at least give Liberty “action” on all three days of the weekend, which is part of the reason they’re so keen on sprint races.

    3. Formula 1 last tried the ‘letting them all in’ approach in 2010 – all new entries were an embarrassment to the series.

      1. No they didn’t. They let in a certain number of entries, on the premise of a 30 (later changed to 40) million pound budget cap being implemented.

        https://www.racefans.net/2009/03/17/budget-caps-for-f1-in-2010/

        As we know, it never was, and the teams struggled to compete as a result.

        1. Can you imagine the absolutely silly levels of BoP needed to put any of the new 2010 entries on par with Red Bull and Ferrari?

      2. From memory @proesterchen there were significantly more applications for places in 2010 than the four that were accepted. As @sjakfoo notes above, one of the big “pull factors” for new entries was the promise of a budget cap, which was pulled out from under them.

        Although significantly slower than the established teams, the new teams from 2010 onwards were not particularly poor by historical standards – for example, the last time F1 had a full 26-car grid at Monaco in 1995 the gap between pole position and last place was 9.5 seconds. At Monaco in 2010 the gap in Q1 between first and last was about half that, at 4.8 seconds.

    4. Let them all in, and bring back pre-qualifying.

      Well said. Rock up, pass scrutineering, pre-qualify, then you’re in.

  3. Anyone who can produce a car that meets the regulations and can pay the entry fee should be allowed to race. Even if there’s 2 mechanics and a driver.

    1. Anyone who can put 7 players on a pitch and can pay the parking fees for the bus should be allowed into the Champions League.

      1. What’s the harm in getting knocked out of the competition at the first opportunity?
        What’s the harm for F1 and the existing teams of some new boy coming in, failing to qualify and going home again?

        1. No one is getting knocked out of competition unless you’re a Lola-level complete failure and fail to clear the 107% mark. If you’re merely 5 or 6 seconds a lap off (depending on the lap times) you can just drive around all weekend, making Formula 1 look silly for letting you in in the first place.

          Then there’s the financial harm of any additional team wanting a piece of the revenues distributed by Liberty.

          1. making Formula 1 look silly for letting you in in the first place.

            They wouldn’t make F1 look silly – they’d only make themselves look slow.
            And in that context, there’s no shame in that. Think where Williams and McLaren have been in recent years.
            Being slower than everyone else reflects negatively only on themselves, while simultaneously actually making the faster teams seem more impressive, given they all make their cars to the same rules.

            Then there’s the financial harm of any additional team wanting a piece of the revenues distributed by Liberty.

            No harm in that at all. The business world is competitive – fact of life.
            The bigger, faster teams would still take the majority of the prize money and attract all the wealthy sponsors anyway. A slower team is hardly a significant threat to their earnings or sustainability.

          2. There hasn’t been a new team in recent F1 history that has jumped in and been competitive immediately. Haas came closest with minor points.
            It takes time and investment, lots of both.
            I’d rather slow cars on track, proving F1 can attract people, drivers in slow cars impressing and moving up, talented engineers in the sport, etc, etc.
            Blocking new teams because they’re slow is no different to preventing lower league teams in the FA cup – how are they ever going to prove if they can do it with all the obstacles in place?
            It’s lunacy, and it needs to stop.

          3. @sham Most current F1 teams can’t even “do it”. It’s been a Red Bull vs. Mercedes game since 2009, with the odd Ferrari win at various points. There’s currently no benefit to having six more cars on track if they’re going to be lapped three times, or cause a marked increase in neutralizations that in turn harm the racing for the competitive spots.

            Until F1 stops the lunacy of spending hundreds of millions on cars that are barely faster than F2 cars, there’s no point in having more teams. People that want to go racing are much better off in one of the regional sportscar series – or if their budget allows, the WEC.

          4. There’s currently no benefit to having six more cars on track if they’re going to be lapped three times, or cause a marked increase in neutralizations that in turn harm the racing for the competitive spots.

            That’s the thinking of an elitist, where finding the winner is seen as the only important part of the competition.
            I don’t agree with that at all.

            Not only do I usually very much enjoy the way those ‘neutralisations’ affect the races (and so do most other people, judging by the rate-the-race scoring) but I don’t watch motor racing for the result – I watch it mainly for the action and competition that leads to the result.
            And in F1, it’s quite common that the competition in the lower part of the field is much better than the one at the front.

            Until F1 stops the lunacy of spending hundreds of millions on cars that are barely faster than F2 cars, there’s no point in having more teams.

            Those are two completely independent issues.

            People that want to go racing are much better off in one of the regional sportscar series – or if their budget allows, the WEC.

            That’s always been the case, in a sporting sense. But F1 isn’t about sport.
            More people watch F1 (although I can’t imagine why sometimes) so it remains the better place for marketing and making money.

      2. Biskit Boy (@sean-p-newmanlive-co-uk)
        10th January 2023, 9:18

        You made a mistake choosing soccer/football as your example. There are no barriers to a team’s progression except for performance.

        An amateur team could eventually progress to the Champions League over the years. It just has to perform well enough.

        The same should be true in motorsport.

  4. Great to see the potential of more cars on the grid. I thought a 24 car grid used to be great. Audi seems like its entering the sport as a serious competitor, with plans to buy an existing team and improve it.

    This Andretti Cadillac entry seems a whole lot less enticing.. they might just try and enter like Haas did – a glorified outsourcing unit that doesn’t design a car, but just puts things together and goes racing in a hail mary fashion.

    1. They still have to be able to show evidence that they designed their own car.

      And would it really matter if they did choose to run a Haas-style operation? They wouldn’t be winning any races… Their problem. It’s perfectly within the rules to do so.
      It’s still more cars on the grid, more drivers in cars, and more staff in employment. All positives.

  5. In the modern age we survive in, it should take days, not months to accept entries from new teams. Get your act together FIA!

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