today, 5:34 PM | by Noa de Ruijter
Ferrari team principal Frédéric Vasseur and Williams team principal James Vowles have expressed their concerns about adding an eleventh team to the future F1 grid. Especially with the end of the current Concorde Agreement in sight, the team bosses hope that financial disadvantages associated with the introduction of an eleventh team can be avoided.
The current Concorde Agreement expires in the 2025 season, and a new agreement should be in force in 2026. A number of team bosses, including Vasseur and Vowles, are not confident that an 11th team will only complicate commercial procedures for everyone involved. In addition, Vasseur also has concerns about the future reputation of Formula 1.
“It doesn’t matter what the format, the organization and the rules are,” Vasseur began his explanation to the international media about the situation, including Motorsportweek. “At the end of the day, when you’re 11 teams, you’re in the spotlight more than when you’re 10 teams.” According to Vasseur, Formula 1’s reputation is now very good, but the sport could easily decline in popularity. Especially if an eleventh team is added, there will be even more of a magnifying glass on motorsport than now. “When you’re in a positive situation and things are going up, I think everyone is positive and optimistic, but I’m not sure it will stay that way forever. We really have to pay attention.’
Also financial concerns for Vasseur
In addition to the fact that Formula 1 will be under more scrutiny with an eleventh team, especially in America with the arrival of an American team such as Andretti, the Ferrari team boss is also of the opinion that there will be much less money left for the current teams if an eleventh team may appear at the start. ‘We increase costs at every meeting. We put inflation in the budget ceiling, we change the index for inflation and we increase capital expenditure. And now we want to dilute the revenue even more.”
According to Vasseur, such changes every few years also make it difficult to make an accurate prediction in terms of budget. ‘It’s also not easy to run a business and make forecasts when you have these kinds of changes so often. Frankly, we are not learning from the past and this is a big problem.”
Vowles wants more financial stability first
Not only Vasseur is concerned about the financial disadvantages if an eleventh team is added to the grid, Vowles also thinks that Formula 1 cannot currently cope with that financially. “It’s not that there isn’t room for an 11th team, we just need to be financially stable to be able to do that,” said the Williams team boss. ‘I appreciate that we are expanding things, but for the first time in a while we are trying to achieve financial stability. Let’s get to that point and see where we are.” Vowles indicates that he is not completely against an eleventh team, but hopes that the new Concorde Agreement does take into account the financial costs of such an eleventh team.
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2023-12-14 16:34:00
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