Prospective new teams for the FIA F1 World Championship.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

F1 is a competition.
It is time for the existing teams to shut up and put their focus on their primary reason for participation in the competition.

Nice overall post and I agree with you. I wanted to comment on the above part of that post. See below.

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

Who'd have thought that letting the teams be in charge of things could've ended badly. I, for one, am shocked. Shocked!

Right!

Lets broadly ignore the business/entertainment part of F1 for a moment and say it is a "competition" and that they "participate". Team are not there for the "competition" or for "participation", they are there to "win". While they give lip service to more competitors, they really just want to win. So they will use whatever means are available to them to accomplish that including complaining about the fees. Because extracting more blood from a competitor (in this case via an enlarged dilution fee) is "winning". Yes, this is a cynical view, but I think it is mostly accurate.

Richard

[E.B]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

Logical possibility.. Scuderia Alpha Tauri transmogrifies into Team Andretti
Italian Minardi base
No 2026 engine supply deal
Underperforming to its sister team
A history of winning Grand Prix
Seemingly motivated bean counter seller
Cheaper to buy than the $200m pie share

It was claimed Scuderia AlphaTauri would either be forced to move from Italy to the United Kingdom to allow for better economies of scale with its sister team, or be put up for sale.

Flatly refused by Alpha Tauri TP Franz Tost....

On Wednesday, a statement quoting Tost moved to distance itself from those suggestions after meetings with Mintzlaff, (who took over as CEO of Red Bull’s motorsport operations following the death of Deitrich Mateschitz last year)

“I had some very good meetings with Oliver Mintzlaff, who confirmed that the shareholders will not sell Scuderia AlphaTauri, and that Red Bull will continue supporting the team in the future,” Tost said.

“All these rumours have no foundation, and the team has to remain focused for the start of the season to perform better than last year.”

As is the case often with rumour rebuttal's and rejections, does that mean, in Porsche style, a deal is ready to sign, or do we take Tost's / Mintzlaff's word as absolute.

Personally I would think any team not forced in to a financially induced fire sale would hang on until the dilution fee is finalised, as any increase in that will surely bring with it an increase in the value of existing teams.... so I would favour Tost's answer over internet 'rumour' and speculation.
https://www.speedcafe.com/2023/03/01...-sale-rumours/

[steve_r]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Right!

, they are there to "win". While they give lip service to more competitors, they really just want to win. So they will use whatever means are available to them to accomplish that including complaining about the fees. Because extracting more blood from a competitor (in this case via an enlarged dilution fee) is "winning". Yes, this is a cynical view, but I think it is mostly accurate.

Richard

Yes they all want to win, but some (all? / many?) also want to make money. Hence Williams is owned by a private investment firm for example. McLaren is also part owned by an investment firm. So they don't want F1 "diluted" with another team. They want to keep the status quo. This is another reason why the teams should have no say whatsoever regarding any new teams.

I on the other hand would love to see 26 car grids again, although I am aware that this is unlikely to happen any time soon.

[S griffin]

I'd say Merc are most motivated to win, but so are others. Of course some in the business are motivated by the money. Shame what has happened to Williams, but McLaren still retain most of their DNA. But they should not keep out other teams. That's not what F1 is about. Other teams deserve the chance

I miss the likes of Caterham in F1 and we could have a few more by now if things had been done differently. Although there will always be a few who go because they can't cope in the high pressure F1

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by steve_r

Yes they all want to win, but some (all? / many?) also want to make money.

Absolutely. So Teretonga's post was focused on the "sporting" side of F1. Which is why I also said..

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Lets broadly ignore the business/entertainment part of F1 for a moment and say it is a "competition"...

So why F1 teams act like they do is complex. It's mixture of business, entertainment and sport. And the importance of each of those dimensions varies from person to person, fan to fan, team to team.

Richard

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by steve_r

Yes they all want to win, but some (all? / many?) also want to make money.

Obviously you can't win the Formula One world championship if you have gone out of business: refer Brabham, Team Lotus, Prost, Arrows etc.

[P38 in workshop]

What would Bernie do?I think Liberty could do worse than picking up the phone an asking.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Absolutely. So Teretonga's post was focused on the "sporting" side of F1. Which is why I also said..



So why F1 teams act like they do is complex. It's mixture of business, entertainment and sport. And the importance of each of those dimensions varies from person to person, fan to fan, team to team.

Richard

Yes I did look at it from a sporting point of view.
But also from a business point of view.
If the purpose of the dilution fund is to prevent a loss of real income by a new team then focus on using the fund specifically for that purpose.

Even as a business there is no basis for assuming that any existing teams have a precedence in belonging to F1 over any other team with the single of exception of Ferrari which has been in the sport continuously since the 1950 inception of the WDC in 1950. Others have come and gone and of the other 9 teams the only ones that have remained in their initial identity since their inception are Mclaren, Haas, and Williams.

Red Bull, Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo/Sauber, Alpha Tauri, Alpine and Mercedes have all been through multiple changes in ownership AND identity without any exception, so to give them the right to suddenly act to exclude any new teams from participating via an exclusivity clause or a pay wall is anti-competitive.

Current news is that the payments from the commercial manager to the teams for 2022 are in the region of 1,157, million, (or $1.157 billion USD).
So a comment I made earlier last year that all the teams had enough in hand (when adding their ownership and commercial support to the work) to make the full maximum allowed by the cost cap was relatively correct.

The cap doesn't include driver salaries or engine leases, but the rules do limit the amount a power unit developer can charge. So actual spending is higher than the cap.

The average for the current teams distribution is therefore over $115 million and if we assumed a range from first to last of no more than $40 million, then we are looking at distribution ranging from 135 million for first to 95 million for tenth place.
For the tenth placed team to make the cap only requires an additional $40 million approximately, plus the extra costs.
Teams like Red Bull and Mercedes, Ferrari and Alpine, McLaren and Aston Martin will not therefore require huge searches for additional funding and what they do get in income can be spent on facilities and commercial development. Which makes the problem over the dilution fund all a bit superfluous.

Andretti offered to forgo any revenue for the first two years so effectively if taken up that would mean there is NO loss incurred for the first two years of his participation.
So effectively no need for a dilution fund in that period at all

And any dilution fund contribution should be held in trust by the regulator, not the commercial rights holder, during the initial years of participation and only used to top up any loss to the existing teams in the initial years of the newcomer's participation.

And how long should that policy continue?
Should a failing team automatically have rights of support from the fund remain eternally?
If so, on what basis?
And if a team fails commercially, it would be able to be bought, or taken over by any entity that wished to come in, purchase it, and revive it, as has already happened countless times to the existing teams I mentioned above.

This whole thing is essentially a protectionist argument that realistically has no basis in fact or in the history of F1.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

This whole thing is essentially a protectionist argument that realistically has no basis in fact or in the history of F1.

Agree.

You are using logic in your argument, but as you say above the real agenda is protection via exclusion of other/more player.

Richard

[GTRMagic]

AndrettiF1 could be on the grid THIS YEAR if they find the right person to negotiate with Red Bill & Alpha Tauri..

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

AndrettiF1 could be on the grid THIS YEAR if they find the right person to negotiate with Red Bill & Alpha Tauri..

If ATs poor performance continues then it will certainly help Andretts case.

[veeten]

Interesting...

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/eq...2026/10449560/

[morninggents]

Maybe it's the cynic in me but this seems like Pollock is just jumping on the bandwagon. I'd like to know just how male/female balanced his team squads were when he last ran F1 and CART teams. And just how 'equal' are women in Saudi Arabia or any other middle eastern country?

[peebee2]

Who’s he fleecing now?

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by morninggents

Maybe it's the cynic in me but this seems like Pollock is just jumping on the bandwagon. I'd like to know just how male/female balanced his team squads were when he last ran F1 and CART teams. And just how 'equal' are women in Saudi Arabia or any other middle eastern country?

I know they are not trying to create an organic equality, but it still feels overly forced.

Unrelated, but on topic...

Porsche no longer looking to F1

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/p...here/10449480/

Richard

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by veeten

Interesting...

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/eq...2026/10449560/

if its about equality then all the power to them...no issue there for me. even if it may be considered to be misguided or an attempt to bolster their entry bid so be it...no real issue there for me either.

that said my issue, and of course i have one, it is the notion of funding potentially coming from a national institution/sovereign wealth fund.

perhaps not at all different than what we have seen in the past (Mumtalakat Holding Company holds a large interest in Mclaren i believe), but I do question the logic of allowing more teams to be financially tied to the current regime of an actual country.

next, it could easily be team backed by a Russian company backed by the Russian government (which may actually already be happening) or it could be something far more far fetched like a team being backed by N.Korea...the notion that teams and thus the sport would risk being caught up more directly in the arguments of nations and/or sports washing is a problem for me.

at the least it seems like an unnecessarily risky path to go down imo more so given there is nothing wrong with the 10 teams we currently have.

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by morninggents

Maybe it's the cynic in me but this seems like Pollock is just jumping on the bandwagon. I'd like to know just how male/female balanced his team squads were when he last ran F1 and CART teams. And just how 'equal' are women in Saudi Arabia or any other middle eastern country?

Pollocks Equal team has been in genesis for years.
So it's an idea he has long held but couldn't get backing for it and only now has started to have some success because it is now a seriously held issue.
Not jumping on a bandwagon although anyone buying into it now may be considered to be doing so.

If Pollock has success in the idea, it begs the question. Is it sport-washing by his sponsor or is Pollock becoming an agent of change by working with a country that has social issues within its cultural paradigm?

[S griffin]

We're still waiting for Pollock's PURE engine to come to F1. So I wouldn't get too excited about his plans

We can pretty much rule out Porsche now. It was always a case of 'believe it when I see it'

Andretti seems to have gone a bit quiet. But I'm sure he's still getting on with organising things. Really the curren teams snobby attitude towards him and trying to increase the entry fee mean my sympathies are with Michael

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

If Pollock has success in the idea, it begs the question. Is it sport-washing by his sponsor or is Pollock becoming an agent of change by working with a country that has social issues within its cultural paradigm?

its a great question.

if sports can not be an engine for social change then i suppose i dont know what else should be?

the cynic in me however, at this early stage at least, falls towards the sport washing side of things.

but as S griffin said, at this point there isnt too much to get excited about yet...time will tell if this is a genuine bid or not.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Teretonga

If Pollock has success in the idea, it begs the question. Is it sport-washing by his sponsor or is Pollock becoming an agent of change by working with a country that has social issues within its cultural paradigm?

Good comment. I think we can judge based upon the output he provides.

The two things that come to mind for me is...

1. If this is funded by a middle eastern company, then it clearly can appear to be an image rehabilitation effort. So maybe they should try to include women from the same region in the team. This follow onto #2

2. Don't create "equality" by looking only at the aggregate number. Work hard to build that gender parity at all levels in the organization. In short... don't count a large number of women working in lower level support roles while those responsible for the product being predominantly male as true "equality" and "mission accomplished".

Richard

[P38 in workshop]

Originally Posted by S griffin

We're still waiting for Pollock's PURE engine to come to F1. So I wouldn't get too excited about his plans

We can pretty much rule out Porsche now. It was always a case of 'believe it when I see it'

Andretti seems to have gone a bit quiet. But I'm sure he's still getting on with organising things. Really the curren teams snobby attitude towards him and trying to increase the entry fee mean my sympathies are with Michael

Had you not read of Andretti's recent recruitment success?

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by P38 in workshop

Had you not read of Andretti's recent recruitment success?

Buying Skip Barber?

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by P38 in workshop

Had you not read of Andretti's recent recruitment success?

I think if Andretti was able to amalgamate Craig Pollock's effort with his and then recruit Adrian Newey away from RBR THEN you would have some recruitment success....

Andretti with ambitions in F1, WEC and Indycar might fit within the umbrella of
'a challenge for Newey...'

[P38 in workshop]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Buying Skip Barber?

I'm reasonably sure you would have known about Nick Chester,John McQuilliam and Jon Tomlinson joining the putative team.

[S griffin]

Originally Posted by P38 in workshop

I'm reasonably sure you would have known about Nick Chester,John McQuilliam and Jon Tomlinson joining the putative team.

Oh yes, I had forgotten about that. But I guess I felt that Andretti had gone quiet because we weren't hearing about the saga everyday as we were only a month ago....