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MacDaddy,
that is pretty accurate. Only 8 cars have sponsorship, possibly 8 1/2 if you figure the second Herdez car; excpet that they lost associate sponsor Corona.
The best guess is Pook can give teams $1.5 M ($30 M divided by 20) to start a team, with $850,000 in ESP cash available over the year. It still costs perhaps $3-4 M to field a one car team, maybe $5-6 M for a two car team (with the reduced costs), not counting driver salary and crash budget. Teams are attempting to find funded drivers to close the gap. Dale Coyne is an expert at that, as would be Dick Simon should he be on the list (a fair replacement for BC Motorsporst and Dana Brewer). I expect some drivers to be replaced during the course of the year, as their budgets run out. I also expect races with car count requirements to have a few extra entries. The field will likely fluctuate between 15 and 20.
It appears Andre Lotterer has some budget. With JAG, as with Brand Motorspirst, I doubt a formal team will be created. More likely a partnership with an existing shop in the ESP to field a car at selected events.
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