Haas Team Principal Guenther Steiner says that there would be “no benefit” to an 11th team being set up on the Formula 1 grid.
In recent months, there has been increased talk of a new team establishing itself in the paddock.
Andretti Global has been the most vocal party and has even announced a tie-up with General Motors, which would see Cadillac join the grid with it should its bid be successful.
However, Andretti has faced resistance from a number of F1 teams over fears of how it would impact the revenue shares.
But not all teams have responded negatively to Andretti’s interest, with McLaren and Alpine offering support to the US squad.
When it joined the field, Haas, F1’s newest team, took over the facility that the collapsed Marussia squad operated out of in Banbury.
Marussia’s stint in the sport was largely unsuccessful as it was rooted to the back of the field before folding ahead of the 2017 campaign, following a season competing under the guise of ‘Manor Racing’.
But as F1 is currently enjoying a boom in popularity thanks in part to the Netflix Drive To Survive series, which has increased viewership and audience engagement across the last several seasons, F1 is now an attractive market for new squads.
But Steiner has warned that F1 must be careful when it comes to welcoming a new team, as he believes it poses a risk of placing a current squad in danger of collapsing.
“To bring an 11th team in… five years ago, you could get teams for nothing,” he told Sky F1. “You could pick it up, nobody wanted them and they went out of business.
“Now all of a sudden, everyone wants a team. But it’s a lot of people which want to come in just ride the wave [of] Formula 1.
“The teams which are here, they are all financially stable, they are all set-up. It’s a very good environment at the moment, nobody is struggling.
“So if you put an 11th team in you get a little bit of a dip in the economy or something, all of a sudden it’s all there. People maybe struggle to survive.
“Why take that risk if there’s no upside? An 11th team, what upside is it bringing? It’s not for me to decide, it’s for FOM to decide because they are managing more, FOM and FIA, the business side of general F1.
“But there is no upside at the moment for an 11th team to come for the other teams. There is just risk, no benefit.”
The FIA has formally started the process of bringing in new teams from 2025 at the earliest.
However, new outfits may look to concentrate on setting up for 2026, when new technical regulations are set to be introduced.
They include a brand new power unit, with six manufacturers – including Honda – signing up for the new cycle.
Discussion about this post