Formula 1 and the FIA are currently assessing submissions from new teams to join the sport; Mercedes chief Toto Wolff says the 10 current teams should be able to dictate whether new entrants are accepted; watch the Hungarian GP live on Sky Sports F1 from July 21-23
Saturday 15 July 2023 09:16, UK
Mercedes chief Toto Wolff says the process for a new team to join Formula 1 should mirror the approach of US major sports leagues, where the approval of current teams is required.
In February, the FIA, the sport's governing body, launched an application process for new teams to seek to join Formula 1 in 2025, 2026 - when new engine regulations take effect - or 2027.
A deadline to enter passed in May, and the FIA and F1 are now assessing the submissions, with known candidates including Andretti and Hitech.
Wolff and the majority of the leadership at F1's 10 teams have repeatedly expressed grievances over a new team being able to join, and the fact that the current Concorde Agreement - the contract between F1, the FIA and the teams - leaves the teams out of the decision process.
"There is no mature sports league in the world, whether it's a national football championship, or the Champions League, the NBA, the NFL, the NHL, where such situation is possible, where you say, 'I'm setting up a team and I'm joining, thank you very much for making me part of the prize fund,'" Wolff said at the British Grand Prix.
"You have to give to qualify, you have to go through the ranks, you have to showcase the commitment to the championship that we've done over the many years.
"If everybody in the NFL agrees - the teams that own the franchise there, so it's different to us - agrees to have another entry, to let another team in because of the right reasons, the right ownership, etc, then that team is being admitted into the championship. And the same with most of the professional leagues in the US. We are a franchise, and this is how I would look at it."
Wolff - along with his fellow team principals - has maintained that any new entry must be "accretive" for F1, but the criteria they want satisfied appears to be almost impossible for an unestablished team to meet.
This standoff is down to F1 teams' feeling that the financial terms for a new entry under the current Concorde Agreement doesn't reflect the growth that the sport has seen since it was agreed in 2020.
"If (an entry bid) is creative, then we must look at it," Wolff added. "So far, what we've seen hasn't convinced the teams - but we haven't seen the applications and submissions that were made to the FIA and to Stefano, and they will judge whether that is positive for Formula 1 or not.
"But in any case, from a team's owner side, there no leagues which just increased the entries, because that just dilutes the whole league. I think if it's accretive then obviously not."
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur, who was sat alongside Wolff at the team principal's press conference at Silverstone, pushed back against the suggestion that F1 needs more American teams.
A perceived selling point adding Andretti, an American team who have collaborated with General Motors brand Cadillac on their entry bid, has been the impact they could have on the US market.
However, Vasseur believes that it is drivers, as opposed to teams, who grow the sport's popularity.
"Very often we are speaking about the nationality of the team but for me, it's absolutely not an argument," Vasseur said.
"F1 is not just a UK championship because we have 70 per cent of the teams based in the UK.
"The attractivity of the F1 is much more based on the nationality of the drivers and so it's nothing to do with the nationality of the team.
Wolff agreed with Vasseur's point, highlighting the fact that F1 already has an American-owned team in Haas, and pointing to the example of a two-time world champion growing the sport's popularity in Spain.
"The team's nationality plays no role," Wolff said. "We have an American team since a long time, we need to have a good points system that we attract more drivers from the US, that we make them eligible for a Super Licence.
"We need to support young drivers like Logan Sargeant to give them enough time, because like we've seen with Fernando in Spain, you've got to race at the front.
"If you're not racing at the front your fellow countrymen are not going to follow. These are the things we have to do."
Watch Daniel Ricciardo's return to the Formula 1 grid at the Hungarian Grand Prix from July 21-23, with every session live on Sky Sports F1.
