Todt may open tender for “one or two” new F1 teams

2015 F1 season

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FIA president Jean Todt says he may invite further teams to enter Formula One in the future.

In an interview with the New York Times Todt said he is “not happy” that two teams went into administration at the end of 2014. One of them, Marussia, is poised to make a return as Manor.

The potential arrival of Haas next year could increase grid numbers to 22. The current maximum is 26.

“We may make a tender again for one or two teams to encourage teams,” said Todt. “And try to reduce the costs.”

While some have sought to blame Formula One’s V6 hybrid turbo engine formula, introduced last year, for an increase in costs, Todt said the change was necessary for the sport.

“I feel it is one of the few sensible decisions which has been taken over the last period,” said Todt.

“Formula One is the pinnacle of motor sport, so we must be an example to society. It is not all happening in a kind of closed golden-gated community where nothing is happening on the other side of the world.”

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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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39 comments on “Todt may open tender for “one or two” new F1 teams”

  1. “I feel it is one of the few sensible decisions which has been taken over the last period,” said Todt.”

    COTD in my opinion.

    1. Indeed. Although on the other hand, its a very sad sight when the boss of the organisation that SHOULD be making the important desicions is saying it as if he wasn’t part of that @tamburello

  2. “we must be an example to society”

    LOL !

  3. “We may make a tender again for one or two teams to encourage teams,”

    Encourage what?? Trying to appease Ferrari & Arrivabene?

  4. Mr win or lose
    6th March 2015, 11:19

    There is not enough money to accommodate more teams in F1. I don’t think F1 should tolerate any more HRT-like teams.

    1. There is boatloads of money in F1, even if the tracks would get to keep some for their own. CVC takes out a lot to pay for loans that were taken on only to payout dividends and still of the revenue over a third goes to them and only less than 2/3rds to the participants.

      And then if Ferrari (and to a lesser extent RBR, Mercedes and possibly McLaren and Williams) get a bit less big piece of the pie, there will be enough to get everyone enough to have a base budget. Then costs need to be adressed.

  5. The best part being

    And try to reduce the costs.

  6. This sport is run by imbeciles

    1. GB (@bgp001ruled)
      6th March 2015, 14:28

      COTD

  7. I can’t imagine any more privateer teams looking at F1, look at the last bunch:
    Tender process was a joke, taking money (USF1, Campos/HRT, Lotus/Caterham) over proven racing teams (Manor, ProDrive).
    The new teams were forced to use an uncompetitive Cosworth engine.
    As soon as they were in under the auspices of an FIA mandated budget cap, this was torn down by Ecclestone who later used the leverage gained here to destroy FOTA by making individual commercial agreements with the top teams and replacing it with the Strategy Group cartel.

    Added to the status quo where:
    The FIA handed over it’s power to the cartel for $25m a year and has been reduced to looking at helmet designs.
    The promoter will not engage with the crucial adolescent market nor make content available for teams to effectively market themselves and their sponsors.
    The promoter will actively cannibalise sponsors by taking them from teams for FOM.

    There’s simply no money to be made in F1, unless you own it of course.

    1. Yup you have it all there just about.
      It is bemusing to think of going to the bank for a loan:
      I’d like a Billion dollars please!
      What for?
      Oh we are going to give it all away, in dividends to our already mega rich shareholders.
      How are you going to pay it back?
      We wont bother, just leave it on the books as a debt, it adds value!!!!!
      Some other sucker will eventually buy the shares if it doesn’t all collapse.
      We tried to float it but it’s too heavy! Weighted down with the layers of ownership and side agreements.
      So what then? Well the sponsorship is drying up faster than we thought so the whole thing may implode within a few years.
      The EU commission may see that we have not kept to the lines they laid down last time they investigated us. Why do you think Todt was trying to move the FIA to Switzerland, outside the EU, land of Lipizzaner accounts. They can’t touch us there you know!
      Ah you are obviously a trustworthy fellow, here take your 1$ Billion and have fun.

    2. GB (@bgp001ruled)
      6th March 2015, 14:39

      i cant imagine F1 will exist for many years under this conditions: followers will be turnes away, no new fans will be attracted. F1 is being killed by the ones who run/own it! its amazing!

    3. “The new teams were forced to use an uncompetitive Cosworth engine”

      Says who? The Cosworth not only revved higher but produced at least as much power, if not more, than any other on the grid. You may remember that Williams & Caterham actually went backwards after swapping Cosworth for Renault. An uncompetitive chassis is a more feasible reason. Witness what Red Bull actually achieved last year with a genuinely uncompetitive engine.

      1. @baron, if you are talking about 2010 onwards, then Cosworth’s engine did not rev higher than its rivals – all of the engines were rev limited to 18,000rpm by then.

        As for competitiveness, one of the parties that said the Cosworth engine was uncompetitive was Cosworth itself.

        One issue that they had with the CA series engine was performance degradation with mileage – they admitted that the data they had seen indicated that their engines tended to lose power more rapidly than the manufacturer engines.
        That issue became increasingly marked at around 1,000km (which was the original design life of that engine), where performance losses started accelerating – by contrast, most of the other manufacturers had a more gradual loss in performance with wear. Cosworth, in effect, had to try and make up for nearly four years of continuous development by their rivals, and to do so on a smaller budget to boot – which was a deficit that they never did make up for in the end.

      2. @baron I fail to see how Williams went backwards after switching to Renault when they actually won a race with them.

        That Cosworth engine was supposed to be cheap for the new entrants, and cheap in F1 more often than not means “not good enough”. That CA2006 was outdated and underpowered.

        1. I don’t think cheap is the correct word in this context but “affordable” might be. Cosworth are a big clever and grown up company. They have never produced anything “cheap” (i.e. not good enough in your context) but they were able to produce a top flight engine unhindered by the kind of costs that beset multinationals. It also may interest you to know that they developed a useful hybrid turbo V6 in case anyone was short of a motor last year. If Cosworth had any disadvantage it was probably in the development in-season area and as they produced the engine for a minimum of 4 customers, clearly the effort could not be sustained with a diminished customer base, until they themselves withdrew

          At the start, and for quite a while, the Cosworth V8 was amongst the best on the grid as befits their amazing heritage….

          1. F1_skeptique
            7th March 2015, 13:04

            Hi Mr. Kalkhoven, nice to have you here. Haven’t found any customers for your imaginary engine yet ?

    4. Another COTD right there @alec-glen

      It’s not new what you’ve said , but seems foreign to the owners of F1 ,

      Money makes men do things they might not do had they no( little) money

      CVC and Bernie are pillaging millions and there’s no one to stop them

      F1 like the world means if you have the money , you have the keys

  8. And what you are doing is trying to make sure a driver only gets 1 helment design each season…

  9. Neil (@neilosjames)
    6th March 2015, 12:22

    Did he just cut and paste bits of a statement from before 2010?

  10. Pat Ruadh (@fullcoursecaution)
    6th March 2015, 13:24

    Todt seems to believe that if he opens the door to say 26 cars… there will be a rush of applicants to fill the empty team slots.

    One team gone, one barely still here, 3 on the brink on collapse, only a handful of sponsors on the popular cars…

    It doesn’t take a genius to work out that F1 is not financially viable anymore. Anyone who wants to go racing will take theri money elsewhere rather than have it siphoned into CVC’s pockets.

    CVC has strangled the life out of f1, and all Todt can say is he will “try to reduce costs.” I bet the applicant forms are flying off the shelf on the back of his cast-iron promise…

    Part of me genuinely hopes that F1 finishes eating itself and dies a horrible horrible death, so that a pheonix of proper racing might arise from the ashes.

    1. Part of me genuinely hopes that F1 finishes eating itself and dies a horrible horrible death, so that a pheonix of proper racing might arise from the ashes.

      I think many of us here, @fullcoursecaution, feel like that occasionally.

      1. @shimks @fullcoursecaution absolutely. I’ve basically designed my own racing series which is F1 but a mile better and financially viable and with races at good circuits with affordable tickets.

        1. does the FIA license those circuits?

  11. F1Fanatic should enter a team! Wouldn’t that be possible with some crowd funding from the F1Fanatic community?
    We only need a chassis, engine, drivers, and about a million other things to make it happen…
    The one thing we do have is a team principal: @keithcollantine

    #wishfullthinking

    1. @uncleben I will happily do the driving!

  12. petebaldwin (@)
    6th March 2015, 13:39

    “I feel it is one of the few sensible decisions which has been taken over the last period,” said Todt.

    I honestly don’t know what to say about that comment…. So the other decisions were not sensible? Why were they made then? Surely Todt has a say!?

    “Formula One is the pinnacle of motor sport, so we must be an example to society.”

    In what way must the sport be an example to society? An example of how money is more important than anything else? That the customer is always wrong? That it’s ok to be racist/homophobic/elitist/sexist if you are rich? That you don’t matter if you can’t afford a Rolex? That the best way to get out of criminal charges is to bribe your way out?

    “It is not all happening in a kind of closed golden-gated community where nothing is happening on the other side of the world.”

    Seems at odds with “We don’t want begging bowls. If people can’t afford to be in Formula One they have to find something else to do. – Bernie Ecclestone, 2014.

    1. @petebaldwin

      I read your comments and think: “Boy that just sounds so cynical and harsh”

      Then I realize, sadly, that I agree with EVERYTHING you said 100%. I’m depressed now. LOL

    2. Why would even silly, super-rich people go into F1 in the current environment? Unless they know something about Bernie keeling over that the rest of us don’t, then it’s just a great way to make a Billionaire into a multi-millionaire.

  13. F1 is an excellent example to society. The ultra-rich get free passes, hospitality and access whilst the rest of us have to fork out a month’s disposable income to stand nearby.

    1. Excellent comment.

  14. Volunteers to start an f1 team, eh?

    “Vroom vroom BASH!”
    “Whatcha doing there, little Billy?”
    “Playing racing cars, grandad!”
    “Want to run an F1 team?”
    “Gee by golly you betcha!”

    I imagine these are the only people the FIA are going to be able to get in the room to discuss it….

  15. I’m so tired hearing that “Formula One is the pinnacle of motor sport”. stop saying it and start act like one…

  16. Here’s a question – who would actually apply? Did anyone other than Haas apply last time (although it seemed like that was a tender opened just for Haas to tick the box)?

    Audi/VW are the only people who I can think would enter a new team, if they wanted it to be a Toyota-like startup based in Cologne/Germany. Yet, they would only join once Bernie is gone.

    As it is, cut-price teams are available for cheap.. think Lotus, Force India, probably Sauber as well.

  17. I believe the current business models of several teams are either woefully out of date or they are run by gentlemen of doubtful provenance.

    I think Haas has got it right and there’s no reason to doubt that there are quite a few other outfits/people out there who could step up to the plate and do it right. The established order needs challenging. All those former greasy mechanics in shiny suits, dodgy hair styles and marble floored offices need a kick up the butt, and they ain’t going to do it themselves. We need new teams to establish a new order.

  18. “Formula One is the pinnacle of motor sport, so we must be an example to society. It is not all happening in a kind of closed golden-gated community where nothing is happening on the other side of the world.”

    Ugh, where to start with this one. First of all, barely twenty cars, pretty much single-spec, doing an endurance race on sprint tyres simply isn’t the best motor sport has to offer. F1 may still be the most popular form of motor sport (at least in Europe), it’s slowly but surely losing momentum. And being an example to society? Come on, Jean, you know that’s rubbish.

    Regarding the second part of his quote, I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be ironic, because that’s exactly how F1 has become. Fans are paying hundreds of Pounds, Euros, Dollars, whatever, to follow this sport on TV, some more hundreds or even thousands to watch it at the racetrack, and even then they still don’t come into contact with the paddock apart from an autograph here and there.

    So Jean, stop thinking F1 is the pinnacle of motor sport, stop thinking you have to be an example to society. Govern the sport in a way it can truly be called the pinnacle of motor sport.

  19. I challenge you all to come up with the perfect definition for ‘Formula One’.

    Here are some Oxford English dictionary definitions:

    Sport:

    An activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.

    Motor racing:

    The sport of racing motor vehicles, especially cars.

    Formula One:

    An international form of motor racing, whose races are called Grands Prix.

    Grands Prix:

    Any of a series of motor-racing or motorcycling contests forming part of a world championship series, held in various countries under international rules.

    Formula 1 clearly sits within all the above definitions although, to be fair, the definition of Formula One should probably be extended for the sake of clarity.

    Here is my attempt:

    Formula One is an international form of motor racing where teams are either handicapped or favoured financially and politically in a dominance hierarchy whose status quo is virtually assured by the teams’ apportion of sports profits and power of influence on the sports policies being directly linked to the position they enjoy within said hierarchy.

    Thanks to @alec-glen whose comment on this article inspired mine.

  20. Duncan Snowden
    6th March 2015, 21:44

    In everyday life, I’m all in favour of saving costs rather than vainly attempting to increase revenue. It’s almost always simpler and easier. But the trouble with F1 isn’t that the revenue isn’t there; it’s that it’s unfairly distributed among the players. It’s absurd to talk about saving costs when Ferrari is getting a whopping bung just for showing up. I’m not talking about introducing “socialism”; merely a more equitable distribution of the revenue that all the teams have contributed to attracting. Instead of all this “title 1”, “title 2” business, let’s have a simple and clear table of prize monies, without any consideration of time served.

    Hey, it might even attract some new teams. How about that, Jean?

  21. Nice to know how much power the FIA has in ‘allowing’ competition in F1. Kind of really nails home the reality of it all.

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