FIA President starts process for prospective new teams to join F1 grid
The F1 grid currently comprises of 10 teams and 20 drivers since the collapse of the Manor squad at the end of the 2016 season. The Manor Formula One team folded after going into administration and failing to find a buyer, leaving the sport with 10 teams two months before the start of the season in Australia, 2017.
Since then, there are teams that have showed interest to join the F1 grid, including Andretti Global, headed up by Michael Andretti. Andretti announced plans earlier in 2022 to enter Formula 1 in 2024.
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The FIA has never made public any intention to evaluate potential new teams through a tender process, leaving the grid set at 10 teams, at least for now.
But Mohammed Ben Sulayem’s recent tweet might change this. The FIA president revealed that he was talking to his team about the prospect of starting a process for new teams to join the F1 grid.
“I have asked my FIA team to look at launching an Expressions of Interest process for prospective new teams for the FIA Formula One World Championship,” the tweet read.
This could be good news for Andretti Global who have already expressed interest to join the F1 grid in the future. However, the American’s interest to join the F1 grid have been largely disregarded by F1 teams, only McLaren and Alpine have publicly stated their support for Andretti’s plans.
The Concorde Agreement signed in 2020 sets out the split of the prize money awarded from F1’s revenue 10 ways, meaning the addition of an 11th team could reduce each team’s slice.
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To combat this, dilution fund was written into the Concorde Agreement that would require any new entrant to pay $200 million to join the grid. This money would be shared between the other teams.
Andretti has said he’s ready to pay this fee to get his F1 operation up and running, but doubts have been raised about the whether this is enough to make up for the lost revenue.
“I think one of the things will be, should we readjust it to current market rate, which is a lot more than that. But I think that’s a very difficult process to do.” Haas F1 chief Gunther Steiner said in June.
