Williams and Ferrari chiefs join Aston Martin in going public on stating opposition to the expansion of the F1 grid at the moment; James Vowles says Williams "very strongly against" an 11th team
Saturday 7 October 2023 03:07, UK
A number of F1 teams have outlined their expected opposition to the prospect of an 11th team joining the grid after Andretti cleared the FIA's application process earlier this week.
Speaking at the Qatar GP where the matter is proving a major off-track talking point, the bosses of Williams, Ferrari and AlphaTauri outlined why they did not think F1 was ready for an additional entrant.
Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll had already stated his clear opposition to Andretti's entry in an interview with Sky Sports on Wednesday.
"Williams is against the addition of an 11th team," said team principal James Vowles.
"And very strongly against."
Ferrari's Frederic Vasseur, also appearing in the team representatives press conference on Friday in Qatar, added: "It's not a secret that I'm not a big fan.
"Except if the new entry is bringing a massive added value to F1, and I didn't have access to the dossier of Andretti, but I think it's the first question - what is the added value for F1?
"We have already a 10th team who is American with Haas, we have an American driver on the grid - the question for me is around this - what could be the added value?"
AlphaTauri CEO Peter Bayer added: "I would probably follow my colleagues."
The FIA announced on Monday that Andretti were the only one of four would-be teams to pass their two-part application process to join the grid, stating the American outfit had met the "stringent criteria" laid out by them which included assessments of their sporting and technical ability, and ability to raise sufficient funds to compete.
That does not yet guarantee Andretti a future spot on the grid by any means, however, with the matter now passed to Formula 1 itself for commercial consideration. Their assessments are expected to take a number of months before any final decision is given.
Vowles, while making clear he had no issues with Andretti or their technical backers General Motors directly and that he was open to the prospect of more teams in future, claimed it was too soon for the grid to be expanded right now.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1, Vowles said: "We are lossy. We are incredibly lossy. Our accounts have been submitted, you can see them [on Companies House] we lost 20m last year. You won't see it for another year but for 2023 you are going to see that number goes up by multiples.
"And here's why: we are investing in the sport because we believe in the sport. I think for the first time in a long, long time the sport's come closer together. We have teams fighting each other. Williams is part of, I'm not going to call it the midfield - we are not that good yet - but we are fighting for something. We want to continue that journey.
"But bear in mind that about half the grid are still lossy. That means someone somewhere - an investor, owners, whatever it may be - are putting in tens of millions, or in fact in our case it's going to go up to multiples above that.
"What we said at the outset is absolutely add an 11th team, but let's grow the pot so it makes financial sense. Not shrink the pot, which is what this is going to do quite significantly."
The current Concorde Agreement - which runs to the end of 2025 and sets out the financial terms on which constructors compete in F1 - was agreed by teams, F1 and the FIA mid-way through 2020 - and includes the option to expand the grid to 12 teams.
It states that any new entrant has to pay a $200m anti-dilution fee, which would be split among the existing 10 entrants. Teams have since argued that that fee no longer accurately reflects the value of a place on the grid given the sport's growth since the Concorde Agreement was signed.
"When we opened the door to an 11th team in the Concorde Agreement last time, it was for good reason," said Ferrari's Vasseur.
"At that stage, Honda said already that they would leave F1 and were on the edge, it meant that we had only Mercedes and Ferrari confirmed for the future.
"And we opened the door to an 11th team in case they could bring something substantial to F1, and I think this at that stage was mainly the engine.
"All the teams on the grid made a big effort. We have to keep in mind that three or four years ago we had almost half of the grid quite close to bankruptcy, and we have to avoid being arrogant.
"F1 and life is a cycle, we don't know what could happen before 2030, and I think that we would put F1 in a tough situation for this."
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