No 13th F1 team in 2011

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There will be no 13th team on the F1 grid in 2011.

The World Motor Sport Council announced today that none of the applications met their criteria to fill the vacant place on the grid, meaning there will be a maximu mof 24 cars competing in Formula 1 next year.

An FIA statement said:

Following the press release of 19 March 2010 calling for expressions of interest to participate in the 2011 and 2012 seasons of the FIA Formula One World Championship, a number of interested parties expressed their interest.

It was considered that none of the candidates met the requirements to be granted an entry into the Championship.

Consequently, the allocation of the 13th team will not be granted.

Spanish team Epsilon Euskadi and a collaboration between former GP2 team Durango and 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve were among those to have applied.

Epsilon Euskadi recently announced they had begun testing a wind tunnel model of their car for 2011.

Read more: 2011 F1 drivers and teams

Image © Lotus F1

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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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56 comments on “No 13th F1 team in 2011”

  1. Oh, well. I’m all for expanding both the grid and the calendar, but if they weren’t good enough, they weren’t good enough. I was hoping Epsilon Euskadi might make it, but that’s life I suppose.

    Thankfully we won’t have to put up with Villeneuve again.

    1. I don’t have a source (sorry), but the popular rumour is that Epsilon Euskadi are working on a partnership or complete buyout of HRT.

      1. As logical a move as it sounds, both sides have denied it.

        1. I think there may be a geographic issue. One of them is at the North of Spain, whilst the other is at the South of Spain.

          Someone may be able to clarify this further for me but there is a great deal of pride and patriotism for the region you are from in Spain, from what I have read. This appears to be an issue.

          1. It depends – the Basques and the Spaniards don’t exactly get along, but how nationalistic are Jose Ramon Cabarante and Joan Villadelprat? Besides, the Basque separatist group ETA have said they’re going to disarm; maybe a mutually-run Formula 1 team is a way to secure peace and prosperity.

            Hey, don’t laugh. It could happen.

          2. Team Peace – sponsored by Earthdreams

          3. but they ARE both in spain.

      2. I think Autosport.com and newspapers had an interview with Villedeprat (mainly about them windtunnel testing their car design), where he was quoted saying they are offering their services to HRT for now. But he would consider something like a joint effort, in case they don’t get the 13th spot.

    2. Sadly, i was so looking forward to seeing Villeneuve – either as principal or race driver!
      But to be honest, this years back-markers (whether we like it or not) have contributed to the thrills!
      What say u…loosing time to traffic…opportunity to close the gap…there you go….an overtake!
      :-)

      1. Villeneuve was over-rated. Seriously, Michael Schumacher is a seven-time World Champion. And he’s struggling after a three-year break. What has Jacques Villeneuve done recently? I seem to recall him scoring more points in 1998 than he did in he rest of his career. Formula 1 isn’t any worse without him; hell, it’s probably better off, since it means one less moving chicane.

        1. now… if we could only get rid of vettel

        2. 1997.

          Anyway he’s doing some NASCAR series but only occasional races.

        3. Agreed with Prisoner Monkeys. it seemed as though every team apart from Williams that he drove for was better without him.

        4. As for what Villeneuve has done lately..

          He drove an excellent Nascar Race in Montreal, finished 3rd and he had a really good change of winning it but it wasn’t to be.

        5. I’m gonna put up a sporting defense of Villnuerve (sic) as a guy who did a quality job as a rookie in 1996, winning 3 races and finishing second overall, he was like a Hamilton of his age. Perhaps if he had one big weakness it was his decision to join a bad team, as well as Williams hitting the rocks post 1997. As a driver I think he was very skilled.

          ps: You’re wrong. In 1997 he scored 81 points, in the rest of his career he scored 154 points. :)

  2. Well this is no great loss.

  3. So I’m guessing the “we want SGP” campaign Zoran was pushing with didn’t get them over the line.

    1. Strange that, an they have such nice agriculture there.

  4. Probably the best outcome, it doesn’t help anybody to have another team trailing around at the back.

    It would be nice to see the rumoured EE/HRT merger go ahead. EE probably didn’t want to act on this before the FIA ruling was given, so now the rumours might gain some traction.

    With radical new rules coming in 2013, this could be a great chance for some more teams.

  5. I knew F1 was superstitious, but come on

    To be honest, it’s no great loss. F1 made a big mistake in timing the new regulations and the new teams to separate years, and we’ve seen the full consequence of that. Having another team will just mean another two strugglers trying to hang on to the back of the existing ones, who’ll still have a job to get points next year.

    1. As ever it’s hard to secure funds without an entry confirmed and it’s not possible to get an entry without money confirmed. Sounds pretty clearly a case of not wanting any new team.

      Who knows what kind of budgets the FIA wanted to see from these teams. Even ART did not get it together (or just got the hint the FIA nor Bernie were really in for a new entry).

      1. As ever it’s hard to secure funds without an entry confirmed and it’s not possible to get an entry without money confirmed.

        Actually, a legal contract promising the payment of however much (Villadelprat said they have access to 65 million Euros last year, so lets go with that for the time being) was promised upon receiving a grid entry would be more than enough. While a team might not have the actual, physical money with them, a legally-binding document should be more than enough in its place.

      2. Sound_Of_Madness
        8th September 2010, 14:19

        Then why did they set up the entry competition?

    2. I knew F1 was superstitious, but come on

      Like it!

  6. Sound_Of_Madness
    8th September 2010, 14:17

    Were they more afraid that the candidates would be more of the HRT-USF1 variant, than of the Lotus-Virgin one?

    Pity. IMO EE had the facilities to build an, um, marginally competitive car on their own, would be interesting to see them merging with HRT.

    Anyway. A good idea would be having as many teams as they can participate, and sort out which 22-24 will race via pre-quali. This could translate onto sponsor coverage time as well.

    1. Not happening.
      If Peter Sauber, a more established name out there you’d struggle to find, cannot attract sponsorship to a team guaranteed to score some points, and has one of the most exciting drivers in the current line-up racking up TV-time in every race, there is NO WAY a newcomer can convince a new sponsor to the sport to spend 10 – 20 Million EUR/USD to perhaps have a small chance of a glimpse of a corner of a sticker on a pre-race clip-show (because there is not one TV-provider willing to pay to show that live, or have an audience for that if they do.)

      1. Excellent point. Sauber has top of the line facilities and one of the largest CFD centres thanks to BMW, and they’re still waggling around at the back of the pack in all white cars.

        Lotus at least have the right approach, they can establish themselves as a good midfield team. Breaking from the midfield into McLaren/RB/Ferrari territory isn’t going to happen, though.

    2. EE has facilaties and sponsers, I really don’t think they’d have disgraced themselves. In a year or two they’d have been right in it.

  7. Mike "the bike" Schumacher
    8th September 2010, 14:24

    Does that mean that they would have been worse than what HRT have been or that the fia are now more strict on the teams applying. Its a shame that lola didn’t apply again though.

  8. I don’t think it is a bad thing really. We already have 3 teams as constant back-markers, i don’t think we need more. Wait for 2013 where there is a new major change in the rules and give them a go from there. That should give them a better chance for hanging on to the back of the pack.

  9. here’s an idea, why don’t they give them more time to get ready?

    1. Exactly. Why not have the process of selecting a new team for 2013 happen next year.

      Then allow the successful team access to the official windter tests and a number of in season test during the 2012 season to get up to speed…

      …wait, that’s far too sensible an approach for the FiA, what was I thinking!!

      1. Absolutely. They should make an announcement before the end of this season that they’ll open up the bidding process next season. Give prospective new teams a year to apply, use the following winter to make their determination, and announce the selection at the beginning of the 2012 season, giving the new team a full year to prepare. If they did that they might actually end up with a team on the grid in 2013 that isn’t completely floundering.

    2. here’s an idea, why don’t they give them more time to get ready?

      Because they need time to put an application together.

      Consider this: it was known since September 2008 that the grid would be opening up for 2010. Prospective entrants had ten months to get their applications ready. However, USF1 withdrew in February of this year; to expect the teams to have applications ready by June this year would mean they would have just half the time to put the application together.

      And Lotus didn’t get their grid berth until September 2009, tus proving that you can indeed make the grid and do quite well for yourself in just six months.

      1. Except in the case of Lotus, I’m not sure how much groundwork was already completed by Litespeed before Proton and 1Malaysia took over…

        Also, a two year gap before the new formula (turbos, ground effects, etc.) will give new entries some time to work out the car design, instead on burning funds on a car design which can’t be used past the 2012 season anyway… assuming they can last the two years without direct F1 sponsorship…

      2. Quick side track to prove a point here… I’m a video editor and our production company is always coming across situations where we have a very limited amount of time to produce the work the client wants. Time and again we’ve surprised ourselves by creating a great product in an amount of time we didn’t think possible. HOWEVER, this doesn’t mean that we’d RATHER have the proper time for preparation and are more prone to create something worthwhile when given the right amount of time.

        Likewise, just because it’s possible does not mean it’s the best way to do it. These decisions should and could be made much farther in advance to allow teams proper time to prepare so that they will be more prone to being competitive from the get-go. Is it a guarantee? No. But nor is it a guarantee that they’ll make it if you give them LESS time. In fact, it’s probably safer to assume you’re raising the chances they won’t make it if you give them less time.

        1. *doesn’t mean we wouldn’t rather have the proper time

  10. This does mean that we will not see a new team in F1 for the next 2 seasons. No team is going to set up for 2012 only to then have to start from scratch the following year.

  11. Good …we already have a 2 tire field…..13th team would have made it a three tire field…More over one more happy thing is we dont have to see Villeneuve again.

    1. No, MotoGP has two TIRE field, although a championship for trikes would be interesting…

      :) sorry…

      1. :-) I was thing the same thing.

  12. Not really a surprise at this point. I like the idea of competing for a 2013 spot and announce them next year.

  13. i think anyone who wants to enter into formula 1 should try and buy stake in existing teams, i’m sure there are teams who would need fresh money. no sense in adding a back-marker team when existing teams are finding it hard to survive.

  14. I’m not surprised. I would imagine this could also mean we have no 13th team for 2012 also. Unless new teams can greatly exceed the minimum requirements for entry into the World Championship. New teams should not be thrown onto the grid with so little funds and short notice.

  15. Charles Carroll
    8th September 2010, 15:48

    You all realize that this is just another step in Luca’s plan for creating “Ferrari” One to replace this cumbersome and non-Ferrari dominated “Formula” One.

    I mean, really, why aren’t all of the cars red with bar codes already? It is clearly a conspiracy against rich Italian sports car companies with cool names and extraordinary wealth.

    The injustice!

  16. I think not selecting the 13th team is the best one as it won’t allow any more useless team to come in F1.Then surprising thing to me was that nobody showed any interest in the Toyota outfit which have a very rich resource & any body buying it would have done a good job.

  17. Given the experience with HRT and USF1, the FIA has clearly put in place a more rigourous process for assessing entrants. USF1 was a disaster from the start.

    I remember a Speed Channel interview with Peter Windsor in which he portrayed USF1 as being a minimalist, focused, new-style racing team. Right there I had my doubts. And basing it in Charlotte, NC? Drawing on primarily US-based talent. Please. It was doomed to failure, and the FIA should have seen that coming.

    But I imagine they learned from that and I can’t imagine they would let another half-baked outfit into F1. The recent set of applictions were likely far more realistic, but I’m sure the FIA has set the bar higher.

    Also, I’d like to see Villeneuve back on the grid, but not in a backmarker fledgling outfit.

  18. I can’t say I was that surprised when I heard about this.

    The longer it took to announce a decision regarding the 13th team the more I thought it likely that no team would be granted a place for 2011, but rather they would be granted a place for 2012 so they would have over a year to get ready.

    I hope the FIA give out feedback to all the applicants letting them know why they failed so they can improve their bid for next time.

  19. I think they may have missed a trick by not letting in Prodrive and Lola for this year. These were arguably two of the strongest candidates, plenty of people were shocked when they were overlooked, and as a result both of them cancelled their F1 projects and have not shown any interest since. Meanwhile one of the teams granted a place failed to make the start of the season and at least one other is struggling.

    I think that the quality of this year’s applicants has been weaker than last year, and I think that’s partly because some very credible entries were overlooked last year and haven’t come back.

  20. I personally think the more teams the merrier, especially seeing as I am loving seeing the new teams in action and I am bored of F1 takeovers (Jordan to Force India etc). I can understand them not wanting to have any more teams in, but for God’s sake, the FIA need to throw their weight behind the three new teams and place a gagging order on Bernie prattling on about them.

  21. Disappointing but probably the right decision, Just makes Mosley look stupid for not being able to say no last year.

    I do hope Epsilon can build a package for next year though.

    F1 needs to be open to new teams, as long as they can demonstrate an ability to compete…

    Don’t forget that without the three new teams this year, we only have a 9 team grid, and I assure you, this isn’t because the manufacturers are good for the sport.

  22. I had expected this decision and I think it was the right one, as the decision-making process had been delayed for too long for any team that would have been selected to actually have a decent chance of preparing a somewhat competitive team in time for the next season. I think it would have made much more sense to award a 13th slot for 2012, that would have given a selected team at least six to eight months to build up an operation, do some testing in 2011 and then enter for the following year.

  23. I’d like to see new teams entering the sport, but with reintroduction of 107% rule there is no point in inviting a team which is not prepared and will consistently be outside of this 107%… Or is it?

    Maybe we should look at it the other way: we should invite new teams, even those “unprepared” and see who will make it. Let the 107% rule filter them out.

  24. I don’t understand why FIA does this. I mean, Epsilon Euskadi was a great project last year. Instead, they choosed Virgin, HRT and USF1 (that never raced). And now, there are no conditions for them to become a team. Seriously, this guys need treatment imediatly.

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  26. the 13th team should be called sperky

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