F1 Management: No serious discussions about a new team

On Thursday, F1 media released this statement: "Following publicity in recent days from several entities that have indicated their ambition to participate in the FIA Formula One World Championship from 2021, while Formula 1 appreciates their interest, we can confirm that there are no serious discussions with any persons or companies about the admission of a new team."

This pours cold water on the Panthera project while also killing reports of Forza Russia and even talk of a Chinese backed team.

Of course, this is no surprise as Formula 1 is hardly an attractive option for a team of any kind to start-up from scratch. In the past decade, four F1 teams have come and gone, only one still remains.

Namely Haas but, apart from the model they used to facilitate their arrival in the top flight, the example is hardly one that any other team is likely to follow. The team is now at a dead-end, maxed out and the best they will be as things stand is somewhere in the midpack.

There will be no wins, there will be no podiums and your spin-dcotors will haill a top ten finish as a mega-achievement which it is not relative to the bigger picture. Those two vital seconds to the pacesetters will never be closed with the current formula.

Prompting the question: Why would a serious and established race team enter a sport knowing that they cannot win?

Only manufacturers (Mercedes and Ferrari) or works teams (Red Bull) can win in this era, organisations that have ploughed and continue to plough billions into their operations.

Not even the likes of Porsche, Toyota or Audi can be tempted. These are teams that have developed impressive pieces of kit for endurance racing.

Thus pedigreed manufacturers spent huge resources to play in the obscurity of the WEC, but once their respective race programmes ended, that was that. There is no synergy between the power units in F1 and anything else on the planet.

The situation remains the same and now creating a 'World-Engine' which would cater for F1 and have relevance through to endurance racing, Formula 2 and even Indycar if an agreeable power unit format can be agreed.

Ultimately the responsibility lies with the FIA who govern international motorsport. For some reason, president Jean Todt ditched his own 'World-Engine' concept to take on the turbo-hybrids which we have now.

The thinking was he made a compromise and would rubber-stamp the concept for 2021. We will know at the end of this month if Todt has had a say in the future rules or not.

And if the PUs of future F1 cannot be downscaled or re-tuned for endurance racing and detuned for Formula 2/Indycar it will be Todt's biggest failing to motorsport.

Only then, coupled to a relatively level playing field, and reduced costs will F1 become attractive for manufacturers and even other teams.

The USA is packed with race teams who would be able to run F1 operations under the right conditions and with a chance of winning, the ones that spring to mind are Andretti Autosport, Penske, Chip Ganassi etc.

In closing, it should be noted that recent F1 history is peppered with times when teams were supposed to break cover and hit the big time.

Truthfully few have been believable and often conjures visions of shady fly-by-night investors and/or money laundering operators looking for a way to clean their illicit earnings.

In other words, as F1 management felt obliged to point out in other words: no chance any team or manufacturer is dumb enough to sign-up to the sport in its current lopsided state.