[Boxcar Racer]

With Brazil emerging as a world financial power and with their love of F1 and the number of drivers they have, is anyone surprised that there is no F1 team from Brazil? How long before this happens?

[robk23]

To be an F1 team it makes sense to be based in Europe for logistical reasons, for this reason I can’t see a Brazilian F1 team happening for a while without at least being based in Europe.

[Prisoner Monkeys]

There’s a German team that isn’t based in Germany.

There’s an Indian team that isn’t based in India.

There’s an Austrian team that isn’t based in Austria.

There’s a Russian team that isn’t based in Russia.

There’s a Malaysian team that isn’t based in Malaysia.

So there is no reason why the sport cannot have a team owned by Brazilians and competing under a Brazilian licence, but based somewhere much more practical. Of course, this requires investment from Brazil, and there clearly has been no public or corporate interest in doing so.

[Mads]

@robk23
Exactly. It would be absolutely hopeless to try to run a F1 from Brazil. Just running a F1 team sucsessfully outside Britain has proved to be a strugge (Ferrari excluded of cause). A Brazilian owned team (also running under a Brazilian racing licence) can’t be too far in the future though.

[Guilherme]

First we have to sort out our feeder series, recreate our single-seater series, invest in our decaying circuits and reset that stupid Brazilian Motorsport Confederation that did nothing but let our motorsport rot. Then we can think about having an F1 team.

[Adam Blocker]

A mexican team would be more likely (based in the UK), because of Carlos Slim’s interest in F1

[Prisoner Monkeys]

Actually, I’ve heard that Carlos Slim isn’t really that interested in Formula 1. It’s his eldest son, also named Carlos, who is backing Mexico’s presence in Formula 1. Although Sergio Perez’s run of results this year would certainly be enough to justify an increased presence in the sport that the elder Slim would recognise. There’s been a lot of talk that one of the Slims would buy into Sauber for some time now, but they were also linked to a buyout of Honda at the end of 2008, so I don’t think there is anything more to this than a rumour that keeps getting recycled, with only the name of the team changing.

I suspect it is more likely that Roman Abraumovich will buy into Sauber, with Slim moving to become title sponsor of Ferrari if and when Sergio Perez gets himself promoted.

[Keith Collantine]

@Guilherme

reset that stupid Brazilian Motorsport Confederation that did nothing but let our motorsport rot

I’m intrigued – what happened there?

[Guilherme]

@keithcollantine what we have of single-seater series we have to thank for private investors, like Massa with his Formula Future. We used to have a big F3 scene, but it’s not nearly what it was years ago. There is simply no incentive or initiative from the CBA to help young drivers on an international scale, so if you don’t have money to move to Britain or Italy to race on the F3 Championships there, then you’re basically stuck here in Brazil with stock cars.

It looks to me like they hope to find the odd talent like Piquet, Senna, Barrichello and Massa (and maybe Razia and Nasr in the near future) instead of investing on the basics, and going like that I can see a long spell in F1 without a Brazilian F1 driver (nevermind an F1 team)

[vinicius.jlantunes]

Brazil is indeed booming in many aspects, but one that is crucial for F1 in my view is perhaps the most neglected thing in this country: technology. All aspects of it, starting with basic math and science education to form engineers for instance, or simply the existence of any tech firm that would benefit from associating its name with F1 or use that as a “testing / development bed” for its products.
Many teams in F1 are no longer solely a racing team – they are tech companies and / or tied to automotive industry (e.g. McLaren, Ferrari, Williams, Mercedes, Caterham, Marussia). The others (Red Bull, Toro Rosso, Force India, Lotus, Sauber, HRT) are international business plataforms for their funding firms.
The first of above “avenues” for a Brazilian F1 team is, in my opinion, not viable due to the aforementioned lack of technological aptitude.
The second is maybe not as interesting as it may sound – the brazilian grownt is largely due to the internal market, what makes Formula 1 and its inherent global character less appealing. Brazilian firms who would be interested in enhancing its global position via Formula 1 association are limited in number (Petrobras, Vale and OGX come to mind, but that’s all).

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