Benjamin Durand, Panthera, 2019

$200 million entry charge a blow for potential new F1 team Panthera

2021 F1 season

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The $200 million fee new F1 teams will have to pay from next season is “obviously not good” for potential new entrant Panthera, one of the men behind the project has admitted.

However Benjamin Durand, the co-founder of the team which originally planned to enter F1 in 2021, also believes the charge is “a good thing” for the sport.

New entrants will be required to pay the ‘Anti-Dilution Payment’, the proceeds of which will be shared between the existing 10 teams. RaceFans first revealed details of the payment last year. It is contained in the new Concorde Agreement which all current teams signed up to last month.

“We were kind of expecting it,” Durand told RaceFans in an exclusive interview. “It’s for us something that was in discussion for quite some time.”

Durand (pictured right with Panthera co-founder Michael Orts) estimated the cost of entering a new team without the payment at between 80 and 120 million dollars, depending on the level of support available from a manufacturer.

“Obviously it’s not good news, but it’s not news per se, we were kind of expecting it,” he said. “It makes those things obviously more difficult. It’s easier to find 100 million than to find 300.”

The existence of the feed will encourage potential new entrants to buy an existing team if one is available, said Durand.

“All the options are on the table. But obviously another team will be valued less than the 200 million. Williams, from what I heard, has just been bought for less than 200 million, and they have all the facilities, all the things like that.

“What teams are for sale right now I don’t know. The worry is that this will make the owners of the team think they can raise tremendously the value of their teams artificially where they don’t have this kind of value.”

Although the introduction of the anti-dilution payment is an obstacle to Panthera’s hopes of entering the sport, Durand says the fee is justified.

“It’s clearly done to protect the existing teams, which we understand, and it’s a good thing. When we talk to potential backers it shows that the series takes good care of the teams once they are inside, which is not always the case in some other series. So it’s a good thing.”

Now the existence of the payment has been confirmed, Durand said he also needs to understand what financial benefits might be available to new teams, such as a share of F1’s prize money.

“What we need also to understand is what is the contract part of this,” he said. “You have 200 million but it’s not just to pay 200 million – [do] they give you also access to the prize money in year one, what level, we need to understand all those kind of things.

“It’s not just ‘there are 200 million, that’s it’, you have also some advantage out of the Concorde Agreement. So we need to understand what are those advantages and then to value with our backers if it’s worth or not going forward with new teams or acquiring a team. If one team is for [sale], although there is not many teams on the market.”

Panthera had already deferred its planned entry into F1 from 2021 to 2022 due to the postponement of F1’s new technical regulations.

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73 comments on “$200 million entry charge a blow for potential new F1 team Panthera”

  1. I think it’s a massive shame F1 is happy with 10 teams. I know Bernie was always very happy with this round number, too. I’m always caught off-guard whenever I see one of the 2010 races and seeing so many cars on the grid, it was fantastic!

    With such a wealth of young talent and not enough testing to run them, why are F1 so happy with just 10 teams? It boggles the mind.

    1. Remember the long line of pay drivers in the Marussia, Caterhams? Team’s in poor financial health don’t usually hire drivers on merit(for the most part). F1 grid in recent years have been nothing but full of either good or promising future talents. We may question the places of Latifi or Giovinazzi, but they both have good junior racing CVs.

      Better 10 teams in decent financial health than 2/3 extra ones struggling to field cars.

      1. I remember Lotus/Caterham hiring Trulli, Kovalainen, VD Garde, Lotterer and Kobayashi, Marussia hiring Bianchi and Alex Rossi, HRT hiring Ricciardo, Liuzzi and De la Rosa… did any of those drivers not deserve to be there?

        Granted, Chilton, Stevens, Merhi and Haryhanto for example weren’t world beaters but neither did they look utterly out of their depth unlike say former Ferrari driver Luca Badoer, so I am not sure your observation passes muster.

        As for the current grid, Latifi hasn’t fared badly against the highly rated Russell who runs the danger of being a “nearly-man” with Bottas’ Merc contract extension, and Giovinazzi remains something of a mystery after his fabulous GP2/F2 showings and subsequent racing hiatus, which seems to have affected him somewhat.

        As a general question, has Lance Stroll shown enough this year to shake off any claims of being little more than daddy Stroll’s project? I haven’t seen talk about his qualifications in F1 for a while now.

        1. HRT from 2011+ didn’t deserve to be there. They weren’t adequately funded enough to seriously compete. They were destined to be stuck at the back of the grid, and didn’t seem to care.

          Liuzzi had his shot with RB and Force India and should have bowed out without touching HRT.

          Ricciardo wasn’t hired by HRT – he was placed there by RB for race experience before being put into Toro Rosso.

          Don’t forget the stellar performances by Karthikeyan.

          Harsh to say, but I’d rather have 10 serious teams than 10 + 5 teams on the fringe of leaving each year. It must be tough if a team like Haas and all its resources find it hard to move up the midfield.

        2. Aaa123, van der Garde was considered a pay driver at the time, and his time in F1 came after four seasons of OK, but not exactly spectacular, years in GP2 (7th, 7th, 5th and 6th in the championship from 2009-2012). He might not have been a terrible driver, but at the same time he didn’t really distinguish himself in junior series and the suggestion was that his seat was more to do with money.

          With regards to de la Rosa, there was a suggestion that HRT hired him mainly because of his nationality – they wanted a Spanish driver for a Spanish team, and de la Rosa was available at the time. Whilst de la Rosa was not terrible, there is a question over whether it really was sensible for the team to be hiring a driver in his early 40s when said driver had already been pushed out of Sauber two years earlier for underperforming.

      2. Don’t be too quick to blame teams for the poor financial structure of F1.
        We all know the prize/commercial payment structure was not friendly to those new teams then.

      3. Those teams were invited in under a cost cap, and their entire business model was based on the idea that you could win races for less than $50 million a year.

        That obviously never happened.

    2. Ten teams is plenty. I don’t get this idea about F1 existing to have drivers. There are drivers I wouldn’t miss in F1 already, and drivers in F1 I look forward to having in when they’re ready. But F1 is about teams, it’s a prototype engineering contest. They have the most awesome drivers, and there are no drivers who are mature enough and on the top tier level who aren’t in already. 22 is the minimum age really, to have any chance of being consistent enough.

      1. That’s just complete nonsense really. With drivers tending to stick around for 20 years you are saying that only one driver per year matures to be good enough for F1. Add that we often don’t even get the best ones because they aren’t sufficiently backed. We are almost certain to get Schumacher next year and we’re also pretty certain he is far from the best in F2. Young drivers you are looking to may never be able to enter and the biggest tale ts of all may never get the chance. Drivers you will not miss could just be your personal bias and could still prove themselves prominent under the right circumstances. It has happened before. At least more teams would give more drivers a chance – but I agree there should an entry barrier to assure proper teams.

        1. Most drivers don’t stick around for 20 years, and if we know anything it’s that a routine winner of F2 is midfield in F1 at best. The rest of your post is speculation about possibly missing a top driver, as though Max or Charles or Lewis might unluckily have slipped through the net. In fact your post is a perfect example of seeing F1 as something that’s about giving drivers a chance. Well for me F1 is a lot more than that, a point you’ve missed completely – too busy being rude perhaps.

          1. Just look at Nick de Vries for example F2 champion and there was no room and because there was already a Dutch driver no intresse to get him a seat so he change to FE with Mercedes which is probable the best he can score.
            Mick Schumacher is a maybe for next year seat or do you think he is for Haas? I think depends on Kimi if he continune there is no room without kicking out a seated driver.

          2. You’re still talking drivers @macleod. For me, F1 does not exist to give Nick de Vries a drive. Of course the drivers are our heroes and we love and admire them, but the racing is better without too many tail-end cars on track. That is my focus.

            If we had 12 teams that would still leave drivers that their fans wanted to be in, but are left out. Already I don’t really care so much about the B teams, in any case, so wanting more teams doesn’t make any sense to me. If Porsche or someone amazing wanted to join that’d be different. But Panthera? Who are they? Is there a reason I should care about them? They’d mean more blue flags interfering in the race, and more impeding and randomness in Q1.

          3. I would like to see prequalifing with 30-40 cars like the good old deadly days…..

            But what i like is maybe not good for F1 but there should more then 10 teams nowdays the teams hold too much power how more teams how less power they have. I never understood why Liberty didn’t remove any voting about rules that does no sporting federation.

      2. If F1 is about teams and engineering, then why not welcome more teams? If they want to compete surely they want to build their own car too? Some of the current teams feel content to simply copy other cars.

        1. Agreed. It feels like all of the teams in their elite gang all wanting the pie to themselves, and that’s a real shame. Sadly, the manufacturers have F1 over the barrel of the gun.

        2. If it’s a particular team Dane, that’s promising awesome engineering, that’s a different thing from wanting more teams in order to have more teams. I suppose we have to wait now and see what the new listed parts rules are, but Haas for example don’t do any awesome engineering do they? It’s a shame being actually a mega engineering company, but they were formed as basically a kit assembler. If the new rules keep allowing that, then new teams won’t add anything at all.

      3. “ten teams is plenty”? You don’t think it’s embarrassing that F1, the “Premier Motorsport Category” doesn’t have a full grid, and hasn’t had a full grid in nearly 25 years?

        Other, supposedly inferior categories, have to pre qualify their entries because there are more competitors then grid slots.
        Then there is F1, claiming to be the best but repeatedly unable to even fill the grid.

        This $200 million dollar fee (shakedown) does nothing to help the sport, it only creates an artificial price inflation on the existing teams, the sport gains nothing at all from this.

      4. 20 cars is fine for the racing and guaranteeing some level of professionalism. The issues with 20 cars and 10 teams become quickly obvious when one team leaves or goes bankrupt. It leaves f1 with hard decisions everytime an f1 team is close to not being in anymore because 9 is not enough for the contractual obligations.

        That being said if a team slot is now worth 200 million then a team is less likely to fold because that slot is always going to be worth 200 million. It used to be 100 million and that is what hrt, manor and lotus paid iirc. And while that did not save them.. now with the budget gap in place from 2021 onwards that 200 million is much bigger (in relative terms, not actually bigger) compared to the average amount of spending per year than the 100 million was compared to average spending per year back then.

        One of the issues with f1 teams is that their value is relatively small compare to the fact that they are supposed to be competitors in the top motorsports. Top football teams are easily multibillion dollars in value. Same with nfl, basketball etc.. So to compare you can buy Manchester united for 3.5 billion or mercedes f1 team for 700 million. For alleged less-than-200million price of the williams one has to go very low level in football to find a team for that price.

      5. it’s a prototype engineering contest

        @zann So it’s not a sporting contest? With that statement you’ve lost credibility. If it was just about the cars then I’m sure the fanbase would be far smaller.

        Also saying 22 being the minimum age is also questionable – Max is that age now and he’s been pretty consistent for a few years now (when the car doesn’t fail him). And if you look outside of F1, Colton Herta’s season in Indycar proves otherwise, placing 19th in both races at Iowa but otherwise finishing inside the top 10 for the other 9 races, 5 of those being in the top 5 and including a win last time out in Ohio. In his 2nd season at the age of 20.

        There’s also no reason to artificially limit the number of cars. Yes it’s better than 1995 when we last had a “full” grid of 26 cars with the backmarkers being multiple seconds off the pace compared to today but that still should block other teams from entering should they have the ability to do so.

        1. It’s a sporting contest in the field of prototype engineering @skydiverian, and no of course it’s not ‘just’ about the cars. But there are lots of racing series, they all have drivers, what makes F1 special? Max is the best and even he blew three races last year, that he probably wouldn’t have this year at 22. I’m not proposing ‘artificially’ limiting the number of teams either, just not going looking for ways to have more than 20. Hmmmm, so your hit rate on F1 isn’t that great is it? I suppose that’s why you wanna talk about my credibility :)

    3. I think it’s a massive shame F1 is happy with 10 teams.

      They aren’t happy with 10 teams; even stated that they target 13 (or up to 13).
      The only thing they did is put a value on new entrants, to keep non serious contenders out. And it seems a fair value to me with the new cost cap and prize money distribution (I assume new teams can now benefit from year 1).

      1. New teams can now benefit from the next year, but then they’ve dug themselves so deep into a hole that they need over 40 years to make any money back.

        1. they need over 40 years to make any money back.

          Not sure how, or based on what, you calculated this, but 40 years money back (2.5% p.a.) is a lot better than many other investments.
          But more seriously: Not one single team gets paid as little as $5m p.a.; it seems your are just making up payback periods.

          1. You still have to spend much of the money on team maintenance, such as staffing, cars, traveling, tyres, engines and so on. If you are not one of the teams winning you barely make any profit assuming F1 is a business of profit making. Meaning whatever you get paid by FOM constitutes a good proportion of your budget for the next season.
            Mclaren have been very successful for years, but they are planning on selling the family jewels and “house” to raise money.
            Williams well, you know what happened.
            Show me a team smiling to the bank in F1.

          2. Suggesting a new team will make $5 million a year in profit is the real problem with the math.

          3. I did say “over” 40 years which means I wasn’t specific and saying over that range of years is a reasonable comparison to the Williams team that has been in the sport for about that length of time. Williams started his team under very different circumstances than any potential new entrant will face going forward from this new arrangement.
            What do you suppose a new team would be making as profit yearly.
            I’m not talking about the already established teams or a big entry like Toyota or Volkswagon

    4. @ecwdanselby Regardless of whether the drivers are deserving of being in F1 or not, 13 teams on the grid was a lot more fun. More to watch, more to happen, more to talk about, positive or negative.

  2. Because F1 can pay them less collectively and still keep them solvent…

  3. As Dieter is saying, the reasons for this 200 M€ entry charge are quite evident. It still is an enormous amount of money that will most certainly keep anyone at bay (well, it’s the whole principle). Like many, I personally found that a 20 cars field is the bare minimum ; F1 would be better off with a few additional (and yeah.. healthy) teams which is now purposefully prevented.

    I suppose I’m getting old, but I do cherish the memory of that time when more than 30 cars were enlisted, plenty of young driver had their chances, so many stories to follow. Pre-qualification was an unfair process, but quite dramatic, and the possibility not to qualify to a GP (only 26 cars could start the race) was suspenseful situation.

  4. Sometimes it is much better to start your team from scratch than pay for another person’s mess.
    Why will I want to buy a team based in Antarctica when I live and operate in Greenland.
    The true cost is almost half a billion if you want to set up a competitive team with all the necessary tools or infrastructure.
    I can’t now see any GP2 team dreaming about making it to F1, unless of course it is a nightmare they are having.

  5. Bizarre to do this with only 10 teams. Would like a field of 22 minimum, but ideally 24/26.

  6. 10 teams is enough because you already sell out venues and have a television contract with 10 teams so additional teams can’t increase the revenue.
    Restricting to 10 teams does negatively impact the ability to bring in more diverse drivers as there are only 20 spots. A new rule should be added that each car needs to drivers per race. I was thinking that last weekend when VER was out. They should have switched him into ALBs car.

  7. It was good to see that all 10 teams will continue and no one dropped out. But F1 still needs more teams. There are so many young talents waiting for that spot but there are only limited number of seats. More teams would help F1 get new viewers around the world e.g. if there would be drivers from usa, africa, asia it would help F1 grow in those areas.

  8. Currently there are 10 teams but really something like 7 stakeholders Ferrari/Alfa Romeo/Haas, Red Bull/Alpha Tauri, Mercedes, Racing Point, McLaren, Renault, Williams. F1 would rather have teams form partnerships so as to reduce the number of arms they need to twist instead of adding more.

  9. How about Liberty Media running 11th team. Only first time drivers for 1 year. No price money. The cars can be Mercedes or Ferrari etc “B” team. The drivers will get points for WDC and Liberty will pay for the cars and operation…? After 1 season 2 new drivers (Jamie Chadwick)

    1. Brilliant, @dutchtreat! And Ross could line them up in reverse on the grid. Just the Liberty cars, of course.

    2. After 1 season 2 new drivers (Jamie Chadwick)

      This is most inappropriate.
      Why should Jamie bear children every year just to keep such a team afloat?

    3. @dutchtreat Very interesting idea. Just not sure how well the logistics will work in terms of what to use as a car or how it will be made. I highly doubt teams will want to make extra cars and parts “they” built for the season taking up more resources. Not to mention, teams are not going to be happy if some teams will be getting, essentially, a 3 car team. I don’t think it would be fair. The only fair way is to hire someone like Dallara to design and build cars each year, but that will be expensive. I think its a good idea, but don’t think it is practical in a sport that is constantly evolving each week.

  10. Bernie’s idea of having just 8 teams (much more prize money available for each) running 3 cars each was very good.

  11. Wow! That’s insane for a sport with no fans.

    1. you still have this army of despicables commenting on the sport every day.

      1. Hey…I resemble that remark.

  12. I’d have preferred the finances to be set out based on a minimum 11 teams (ideally 12), with ‘dilution’ money paid only by the 12th/13th (ideally, just the 13th). But obviously that was never going to happen…

  13. This makes a lot of sense on a lot of fronts. It locks in value for existing teams. It filters out unserious new teams. What would make this stronger is a customer-car route that’s plainly spelled out. I wouldn’t hate F1 with a top, a midfield, and a back of the field battle with customer cars offering younger drivers a foothold in F1. It would be super interesting to allow a team that pays the $200M entry fee to then purchase a year-old car and race it. Obviously this wouldn’t work during rule changes, but the history of the sport does include this sort of idea. Just not today.

  14. the more I keep hearing “it’s a good thing” the more I’m convinced it is not, which I have not been since it came out.

    1. +1

      Iťs a good thing for the teams, surely. And it only shows ridiculously poor political power of Liberty, who were literally grabbed by their crotch and squeezed.

    2. It’s all of the teams looking after themselves, which, I sadly get. But what a sad state of affairs that they’re bolting up the doors to any new entrants, and subsequently tons of drivers.

  15. I haven’t encountered a clearer example of cartel agreement, bordering nearly the protection racket. Amazingly thoughtless of FIA to agree to such a game. If it really passes, we won’t have new entrants in the next five or seven years and to built a team from a scratch will be practically meaningless. This kind of protection is not only unprecedented, but also unnatural to F1 and completely stiffles the potential competition coming from the outside. Viable teams came and went, but each of them enriched F1 in their respective period – and now the ten entrants seek ultimate protection by openly robbing the potential opponent of resources and declaring themselves as the essential part of F1, the part whose commercial value is above competitivness, merit and everything that makes the sport.

    F1 will die due to this elitism.

    1. @pironitheprovocateur F1 is an exclusive club which protects existing team.. if you join the club, they don’t want you to leave.

      The 200m fee ensures that – even if you can pull off the impossible and build a team & car from scratch – you’re going to build something sustainable and compete over the long term. Anyone scraping things together, with a view of having 3-5 years in F1 and then disappearing need not apply.

    2. I think it will rather be compared to something like a franshize @pironitheprovocateur. And yeah, the idea is off course to put valuation into the existing teams, which means the whole sport and all current entrants gain worth without Liberty having to pay them.

      And if a new entrant comes in, they pay up front, making teams more happy instead of immediately starting to complain about their shares diluting. Again, without Liberty having to pay a cent more.

      1. That ‘extra valuation’ for the existing teams is completely worthless if no new teams apply.
        So let’s say in the next 4years no one applies, but in the 5th year an existing team goes under. The new buyer will have plenty of leverage to still value the team at less than 200million, because this 200mill only exist on an ‘if’ basis.

        I can see why they did it, but i certainly dont think it is a genius idea.
        In any case F1 is doing it last convulsions before fading into some obscure corner of the internet.
        I

  16. Can we also just spare a thought for the 3-4 new teams (which are wrongly being labelled as the reason for bringing this ridiculous fee in) which signed up to a set of rules which were subsequently changed after they signed up! It’s grossly unfair to aim criticism at them. It was a minor miracle 3/4 even turned up, let alone competed for more than a season.

    1. It only shows their willingness to bend the reality how is suits them, in line with the corporate dictate. Honestly, in cases like these I question my interest in this “sport.”

  17. Something that’s sorely lacking in today’s F1 is the underdog (well, you could count 9/10 teams as the underdog, but you catch my drift). Part of the reason I fell in love with F1 at a young age was watching in the hope a Minardi could hang in there as others failed with the minuscule chance of scoring a championship point. The very same team gave the likes of Alonso and Webber an opportunity to shine. These teams give some soul to what can become quite a sterile and corporate sport if it’s not careful. Shutting the door and keeping the elite locked in is a very sad move, but that’s one person’s opinion.

  18. Was it really fantastic though? 24 cars look good lined up on the grid, but not good when some of them were being lapped for the third time.

    It would be great to have more teams, but only if they are competitive.

  19. By the way, remember when we had Minardi or Arrows operating with the budget of 80 or 90 million USD? Then we began to save costs. In the front line with Mr “Let Michael Pass For Zhe Championship” Bonaparte and others, who persuaded us that the most efficient way to save costs would be to pump an enormous amount of money into development. And here we are a decade later, demanding a small fee of just 200 million to enter the sport. The efficiency of corporate rodents knows no borders!

    1. @pironitheprovocateur of course, you’re not accounting for the relative effects of inflation with those figures – a sum of $90 million in 2000 would be closer to $140 million today – so those budgets weren’t necessarily as modest as you think they were.

  20. The more teams there are the greater the chance of one, two or several having financial difficulties, then having to be propped up, bailed out, or fail and disappear. Ten teams have worked well for quite a while. It’s like the Commandments, don’t mess with them.

  21. Obviously, the company that owns F1 and the 10 teams have agreed so that no one else will enter the F1 championship. It is a real shame, a mafia way of doing things.
    Of course it is an attitude that is completely against the sportsmanship that the category should have and against the desire of the vast majority of fans who want to see as many teams compete as possible.

  22. Budget cap is 140 million, but entry fee is 200 million?
    What a strange world we live in…

  23. The worry is that this will make the owners of the team think they can raise tremendously the value of their teams artificially where they don’t have this kind of value.

    Something is worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. Hopefully this rule will give team owners and incentive to improve the value of their asset.

  24. I like his point that someone purchased Williams for less than the entry fee!
    Are these returnable charges? Maybe F1 should do that. Out of the 200 million, give back 100 million over a course of maybe 3 or 4 years. Which sort of ensures that teams will stay back. Else, risk losing that money. Everyone is happy that way.

  25. I am not in favor of this 200m ‘anti-dilution payment’. Although I understand that rationale behind it, it also needs to be understood that for any new entrant, that’s a huge sum of money that goes out of their pockets and simply deprives them of getting the necessary infrastructure in place or develop the existing ones.

    For any team, that’s a lot of money and it rather deters potential teams from entering the sport as they’d be ripped off right away just to make up the numbers.

    The sport should rather ensure a strict due-diligence of the potential entrants to understand the credibility of investors, ability to raise finance etc. to ensure that they’re only allowing teams with some serious backing and intention.

    Otherwise, I doubt any new teams can afford except a manufacturer.

  26. This Durant was right. $200 mio entry charge doesn’t make any sense when the third most successful constructor like Williams sold for $180 mio with all the facility, brand and special prize money.

    1. @ruliemaulana mind you, isn’t that because most of what the team owns had to be mortgaged to keep the team afloat? Both the factory and their collection of historic race cars are now being used as collateral against their loans – so, the comparatively low price probably reflects the fact the burden of those loans you’re going to have to pay off to keep the team going.

      1. I don’t know the detail of Williams debt outstanding, but having no collection of historic race cars to be used as collateral was another disadvantages for a new team.

  27. I’m actually struggling to understand the 200m “fee” being handed over to the other teams.

    To me it would make sense if it were held in trust and the new team was able to draw down on it over 10 years to provide it with a long term contribution to its income to reduce the risk of going broke, but to just hand it off to the other teams seems a bit strange.

    Certainly I can understand Liberty wanting to make sure any new team is “financial” but requiring it to just step up a 200m payment to the other teams doesn’t sound like anything sensible and will just dissuade any potential new teams.

  28. I kind of understand certain fee for existing team, but 200 million is too much.

    If the new team can get part of the equal share instantly then I can get that team pays the loss for existing teams. Recently saw that current teams got 35M from that. Sharing same pot with 11 teams would mean each team getting 31.8M, so 3.2 million x 10 would be enough to cover the loss for one year. And that should be the end of payments from new team to existing teams.

  29. 200 million is stupid expensive. I understand the need to have an entry fee, but man. Look, I understand that the current 10 would not like to split the prize money with more teams. However, with the current budget caps coming in, this shouldn’t be as much of an issue as before. I see no reason to handy cap any new team with that sort of “investment” that could otherwise go into their operations to compete. I personally think seeing another team or two come in over the next few years should be a priority and would be healthy for the F1 series. F1 should be more focused on making the series a little more financially viable for current and future teams to protect the sport from financial volatile times like COVID (aka Williams F1 getting sold).

  30. When I first started watching f1 there was 32 cars to qually and 26 cars in the race.

    Simple fact is more cars more entertainment. Its just another nail

  31. Disagree more teams = more fun.

    It’s just more frustration to watch no-hopers well off the pace getting in the way of cars in races and humiliating themselves (and the sport I dare say).

    Especially as they will likely just be investment objects by the owners, and the drivers there for reasons of money.

  32. This has to be one of the most ignorant requirements I’ve ever heard. Why would the FIA want to handicap a new team by making them give $20M to each of the other teams? Kind of like shooting yourself in the foot at the outset.
    It’d make more sense to require a number of donations to a charity over the season. Wouldn’t it be nice if the FIA developed honesty, common-sense even a slight degree of empathy rather than all this money-grubbing behavior.

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