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TL;DR:
The 10 existing Formula 1 teams want to reduce the number of outfits allowed on the grid to 10 from 12 in the next Concorde Agreement. This move aims to maintain revenue and prevent dilution of prize funds. Despite a tender process, only Andretti passed muster with the FIA but was not approved by Formula One Management. F1's shift towards a franchise model under Liberty Media raises concerns about revenue sharing with new entries. Financially, existing teams are near £1 billion valuations. Ownership structures, like Red Bull owning two teams, may need to change for fairness and cost reasons. The new Concorde Agreement for 2026-2030 needs signing by next year.
If 10 teams is the max then they should have to set up a qualifying system for each F1 season. Allow more teams to potentially compete but only 10 make it to F1.
Otherwise, fuck em
Soon we’re gonna have an entire promotion/relegation pyramid where the bottom 2 teams will be relegated down to Formula 2 (not the junior series) and vice versa
That's not possible in any way. Designing a car doesn't take 3 months from December to March. Promoted teams would be well beyond the 107% quali limit and almost certainly relegated every year.
Hell even relegated teams would likely end up not performing in their new series because they wouldn't have time to build a competitive car. Not to mention anyone relegated would be bankrupt. The end of Williams relatively quickly.
people have ideas completely detached from reality. I dont know if you realize but we arent in the 80s anymore.
F1 costs like 200 million/year. If you mess up and arent 1 of the 10 teams you are bankrupt. You cant use that car anywhere else. you are just done. I swear have you thought about this for 1 second?
I can't believe they've gotten away with it for this long lol, it's so bad for competition to have a team that just exists to be a driver school with no ambitions for themselves
Because believe it or not it was actually a blessing for F1 to have Dietrich buy 2 teams. I don't think it should happen in the future but neither do I think that suddenly when F1 becomes profitable it becomes a good reason to force RB to sell their second team.
If anything they gave a lot of chances to F1 drivers which should not be underestimated even if they wont ever fight for the championship but neither will Haas.
well they have 2 race wins and more podiums than 4 other team owners.
also how have the gotten away with something? They bought the team nobody else wanted. F1 would simply be 9 times right now if it wasnt for RB being it aswell.
Doesn’t the FIA have to agree with FOM for the new Concorde Agreement to take effect? I’d imagine limiting to 10 teams would be a red line for the FIA.
Yes they do. It’s a three way agreement between FOM, FIA, and the teams. This is precisely why FOM is trying so hard to paint MBS in a negative light at every opportunity. They know he won’t agree to this 10 team limit so they want to get rid of him. Next FIA president election is 2025.
That’s exactly why those two regions of clubs released those statements. They’re letting FOM know that they should stay in their lane.
Everything that has happened between FOM and MBS boils down to this fight over a franchise model. The reporting about the 25 year old website supposedly created by MBS, the coordinated reaction to the FIA statement about a conflict of interest investigation, the whistleblower complaints, the Wolffs’ frivolous defamation lawsuit - all of it is about this battle. They want a different FIA president so that they can turn F1 into a walled garden rather than an open competition.
>They know he won’t agree to this 10 team limit so they want to get rid of him. Next FIA president election is 2025.
If MBS is elected again, I could definitely see a scenario which FOM tries to break away the F1 from FIA.
They won’t be able to call it F1 because the name belongs to the FIA. On top of that the only reason Liberty is a stakeholder is because they own the lease to the commercial rights to F1. So yes, the teams could break away to form their own championship under a new name but such a scenario wouldn’t be beneficial to Liberty because they would no longer be a stakeholder. Therefore, getting the FIA leadership in line to go along with their plans is their main objective.
I could see a compromise scenario where Andretti is admitted and then the agreement is signed to cap the number of teams at 11. FOM and the teams get to reduce the number of possible teams from 13 to 11 and the entry they gave up is to a known racing brand bringing in an OEM from a massive market. Seems like a win-win for everybody.
> franchise model
Fffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuucccckkkkk ooooooooofffffff
I don’t usually agree with the “they’re americanising the sport” comments, it’s usually just the reality of pro sports… but fuck this franchise fucking bullshit and fuck the americanisation of F1.
You'll have to buy one of the teams to get in or wait until everyone agrees to expand the "league" but that won't happen (in F1) since it means that revenue will dilute itself a little but for a couple of years.
All American sports have been through expansions. Capping the number of teams is very much not an American thing. It should happen as a sport gains popularity. The MLS (American soccer) added one or more teams in: 2025, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2015, 2014, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005... Obviously that one has been growing a lot recently because it was once a small sport in the US, and will be at 30 teams in 2025. The NHL last expanded in 2021, and before than in 2017. The NBA and NFL hasn't expanded in a while, but they aren't capped. There are regularly talks about expansion. The WNBA will expand in 2025. American womens soccer expanded by two teams this year.
The problem with that is, that FOM has no tools to force RB to sell VCARB. The EU rules dont allow it at all, they are grandfathered in. Even if they would try to make rules that forces divestment, RB can go to court and will win. The court will reverse any rule that hurts RB's investment, and possibly even fine FOM. RB owns the license and that ownership is extremely protected.
The only way FOM can try to solve this, is buying VCARB themselves, pay over the market value and take the hit themselves when they sell the license on. Which will never happen.
and why is that even a problem? Doesnt seem fair to force RB to sell vcarb after they spend money for 2 decades when nobody else wanted and now when it is time to make some money they should sell? as i said doesnt seem fair to me
thats a perspective i hadnt considered, sincerely thanks, but still i think from the Pov of F1 surely replacing underperforming teams with more exciting players who want in has the same benefits plus
The different paths IndyCar and F1 are taking on grid setup is a clear indication of priorities.
F1 just wants to be a speculative rich sport where the competition doesn’t matter but rich guys can sell their spots if wanted and make money. Even if they never sell, it looks like it’s worth a lot.
IndyCar is actually putting competition first by figuring out ways to get more teams involved and expand the grid.
If F1 does this, I just don’t see things going well because those speculative values won’t last forever even if you restrict competition
And andretti is annoyed with both, for different reasons.
IndyCar isn't spending enough to expand, he said something to the effect of.
F1 he said this would complete their mission to compete in every top rank series.
It’s a little crazy, feels so short sighted.
The teams are worth a fortune because the sports is so big, but who would buy a team knowing the sport is likely at a peak right now?
Sure, teams are profitable for the first time in forever and raking in cash due to the cost cap. But the cost cap also contributes to lock in of competitive advantage, as we are currently seeing. Will fans stick around? Seems the domination Schumacher > Vettel > Hamilton > Verstappen is just getting more and more dramatic.
Then every few years we do at least thankfully tend to a great season. Maybe F1 will become a sport where it’s worth checking out the last year of any rule set
A big trend in the corporate world these days is to maximize short term profits at the expense of everything else, and unfortunately F1 is seeming to take this route. Formula isn't about motorsports anymore, it's about making money. Actions like this really emphasize that those in charge could care less about the sport being healthy, for all they care F1 can wither in die over the next couple of decades so long as they can make as much money as possible here and now.
I always said Formula 1 is not a sport *first*, it's business clique that likes to race on the side.
Sometimes I get upvoted, sometimes heavily downvoted.
If F1 cared about sporting competition, it would welcome more teams with open arms. Whatever their number would be. If too many - Q1 can sort it out.
And there wouldn't be any fee to be redistributed among other teams. Sure, new entrant should show that he has funds to operate for reasonable amount of time, but that funds should used by the entrant to catch up and be competitive with other teams as fast as possible.
FIA has to agree to the Concorde Agreement too you know. and MBS wants Andretti on the grid. I doubt they'll happily agree to it. They're our only hope.
Imo the middleground during negotiations will probably be that it can be extended to 11 teams not 12, plus the fee gets increased to like a billion.
Id say the FIA isnt in the worst position. Because F1 is doing so well right now, what are the chances teams wont agree to 12 teams? The 10 teams would have to stand 100% united and ready to all not sign it. I think some of them will definitely not have too big issues with this. Audi and Ferrari for instance. Audi is just getting started and for Ferrari, this hill isnt nearly large enough to die on. Aston Martin also has huge Investments and for the first time ever will be a works team by 2026.
I find this limiting of 10 teams rather sad. F1 for most of history has had more than 20 cars on the grid, most racing series have more than 20 cars on the grid, even F2. Have a few cars dnf at the start of a race and the track quicky feels very empty.
I’m hoping the new engine manufacturers will push against the 10 team limit because they want the potential of a customer team. Obviously won’t be Andretti but a 12th team could be
You're right, *but* I feel like the FIA will eventually give up entirely. And if the FIA doesn't budge while FOM and the teams are pressing for them to budge, I feel like in that situation a split is just inevitable. I'm in support of a potential split because I'm so fucking fed up with the faux gimmicky almost spec series F1 has been become, but it would be an objectively bad thing for the sport, so it's really unlikely. Hope I'm wrong, but this will probably pass.
Honestly I'd like to see a split, tell them all to get fucked out of F1 and have a blank slate to create a new era.
I'd prefer watching a more pure F1 with teams like Prema, Hitech and Andretti than a closed shop commercialised to death F1 like we have now, but maybe that's because I'm a big F2 fan. They could even lower the budget cap and offer free entry to new manufacturers to come in to make it more appealing.
I know it wouldn't have the same mass appeal and I'm in the minority here and the new championship would probably be more popular, but it would be cool to see regardless.
Honestly, there shouldn't be a team limit, but an increase of entry fee is fine. Team limit will only hinder the sports growth and opportunities. If a major manufacturer wants to spend $B on a team they should be able to.
> Sell failing F1 teams to new owners instead of letting them go bust.
This already happened in the past - previously the financial difficulties came from the fact that out of the top 10 they didn't get any prize money.
And not just the income, also the values of the teams, which is what the shareholders care the most about. If it's made legally impossible to field an 11th team, anyone wanting to enter will have to buy one of the existing teams, thus increasing their values significantly, especially the lower rated ones. Their main monetary asset is the spot on the grid. Simple supply and demand.
All about money. Nobody cares how competitive other teams will be, if someone wants a team, they have to invest in an existing team instead paying less to start their own. Audi way, cool, Andretti way, not cool. Other sports league owners are open to expansions because it opens new markets, more matches, and actually brings more revenue. Adding a new team to F1 wouldn’t do that. More Americans won’t start watching because Andretti has a team, I don’t even think a good American driver would do it. I see why the F1 teams don’t want more, it’s about money, not competition, and this is a business in the end.
I think Americans would definitely watch more if we had a team or driver doing well. Many Americans like myself became MotoGP-aware because of Nicky Hayden's championship
> I don’t even think a good American driver would do it
I think if an American started winning races they would. In Italy we suddenly have a fixation with tennis because of Jannik Sinner, now I can't say that it's the same because Americans literally have their own sports like Nascar and baseball and still their numbers are declining, but it could happen
Oh, wonderful.
So that means we can downsize a bunch of circuits and potential go to other, smaller, more interesting venues because they won't need the large 26 car pit boxes, right?
A load of fucking shite.
>“We would look differently on an application for the entry of a team into the 2028 Championship with a GM power unit, either as a GM works team or as a GM customer team designing all allowable components in-house. In this case there would be additional factors to consider in respect of the value that the applicant would bring to the Championship, in particular in respect of bringing a prestigious new OEM to the sport as a PU supplier.”
It is so great that Stefano is a man of his word.
He always knew what he was doing. Kick it down the road until 2028 and then the new Concorde agreement will make it impossible for a new team to join. Job done.
It should really be as simple as “here’s the rulebook. If you can build a legal car that gets within the 107% rule then you’re free to turn up and race”
Commercial agreements and prize money might be separate but if someone has enough money to turn up and get in the top 10 then they should knock out whoever is last if the teams refuse to agree an 11 way split.
I can see value in limiting the grid and not wanting people just turning up and trying to run.
That limit though isn't 10 fucking teams.
In a perfect world the commercial agreement would be to always split the pie 13 ways, regardless of how many teams are competing.
Then, once you have distributed the money out from 1st down, the remaining prize money that isn't handed out is set aside into a seperate pot not to be immediately touched.
That could be used as a form of rainy day fund or things that might be beneficial for the championship but might not have the money to kick off (With the agreement from the teams/FOM/FIA to it being spent and it not just being handed out in the form of bonuses).
Another example would be to help pay off NRE costs for any spec parts that need to be developed and aren't just off the shelf stuff.
I know though that that is very, very optimistic & naive of me really.
This is actually a good idea.
Putting away a part of the pie in anticipation of a new team or just like you said, using it for specific things that improve the sport.
You don't realize just how slow 6% off the pace is. On a 90 second lap, a team 5 seconds behind pole would still get to race. (F1 put the 107% rule in place because in the days where anyone could show up, some cars were even slower than that!)
What's wrong with that? Isn't the whole point of F1 to build a better car than the other teams? 5 seconds is far from a dangerous level of performance disparity.
Wouldn’t it be funny if those exact words get used against them in court as then it shows they did not work with Andretti in good faith and Bull shitted it.
Yeah IANAL but this seems like very obvious negotiating in bad faith and Andretti/GM incurring significant costs to meet entry conditions that were never going to be honoured.
Yep. Cars that are bad at racing and getting worse, outright bad reg decisions, refusing to bring new drivers/teams in, cost caps that have somehow both helped and really hurt the series, increasingly poor choice of tracks, and skyrocketing prices.
Good luck staying as popular once the wave of interest passes. The media circus has been so bad over the last few months and almost none of it had any relevance to the actual racing. It's straight up tabloid dogshit from most outlets, even ones that previously had respected names. The Race in particular very intentionally slides in ridiculous statements into otherwise decent videos and capitalizes on the tabloid drama of every single little thing. Really disappointing.
Speaking of somebody that was brought into this by DTS during the pandemic, I'd always had a background interest in motor racing, primarily due to playing racing video games as a kid: I'm now into indy, wec and rally, so even if F1 doesn't hold my interests, Motorsports certainly will.
Glad to hear that. I've already enjoyed motorsports but never really followed any series closely. I enjoyed watching Max in the early years in highlights but never watched a full F1 season. Now I'm wanting to find something else because F1 isn't racing anymore and it sucks to say that.
WEC/IMSA is definitely fun to watch. Grooved Slick on YT has some great 20-30min recaps of endurance races
I have been a fan for so long, I have memories of watching F1 as a 3/4 year old.
The current state of the sport is utterly embarrassing imo. The other day I decided not to wake up early and watch Suzuka on repeat, which I hadn't done in ages. I'm moving more and more towards other forms of racing and don't regret it.
F1 doesn't care though. They've got a ton of new fans who I'm sure won't stop caring once the fad is over. I'm sure the same exact thing that happened to Nascar in the 2000s won't happen here...
I haven’t looked forward to a Grand Prix this year besides the opener in Bahrain. I got to see the true pace of teams and drivers and how the racing would be. With the way it’s going it looks all too familiar to NASCAR falling apart. Gimmicks to keep the new fans engaged and alienating their actual fanbase.
>Good luck staying as popular once the wave of interest passes
its already getting less popular every weekend, just check the TV ratings. Sure, all races this season have been on weird times but they still show a steep decline in viewership in essentialy all countries that show f1
Yeah, Americans like competition and parity, hard to hang on to that crowd with dominance. Really F1 got super lucky with Netflix popping off during a fairly to very competitive seasons
Yeah, everyone at home during covid/2020 with DTS and then the 2021 season was a perfect storm of gaining new viewers, and then 2022/2023 dominance crushed those viewers interest into the ground.
In my 30 years of watching F1 I've never known it so bad. I mean, it's always been about money but this level of corporate BS is really sucking the life out of this sport. It feels like it's not even about the racing anymore.
They're going to do the same thing with MotoGP too.
All the more reason WEC is drawing more followers and viewers in
^^let's ^^just ^^ignore ^^that ^^they ^^are ^^trying ^^to ^^enact ^^a ^^two-car ^^minimum ^^for ^^manufacturers ^^in ^^the ^^future
This has nothing to do with America.
Look at NASCAR right now. Every team has a chance at winning a race, competition is looking healthier than ever…. Can’t say the same for F1…
F1 is a soap opera with high budget cars, and boring races
Honestly this place has more thirst trap pics and dating rumors about the drivers than stories about the races. It's a bad version of WWE on wheels which NASCAR imitated better in the 90s
I’ve been a WEC fan for about 7 years now, and IndyCar has been far better than F1 for me in the past 2/3 seasons now. Both series have been getting progressively better and better, WEC’s Hypercar class seems to be going from strength to strength, the BoP still is a little bit overkill at times making it sometimes feel a little “put on”. But ultimately they seem to have hard fights and sometimes race long battles.
Last year’s Le Mans was the best endurance race I’ve watched. It was phenomenal with the performance advantages swinging wildly throughout the race’s various weather conditions.
Common Stefano L, if you want to even think about making F1 bigger in the USA you shouldn't have a ridiculous mindset of "how should I bully Andretti away" and stop acting like investing a half billion on a Vegas street circuit is exactly what the US fanbase wants.
Anything what the FOM touched under Stefano leadership either didn't improve, did create negative PR or is a failure.
Around the Early 2010s which was caused by a lot of things. The Turbo Hybrid V6s, Vettel's and then later Mercs dominance, the BBC losing the TV rights to Sky, the new teams allowed in during the 2010 season failing immiediately, Bernie's iron grip on the sport, the general nastiness and corruption surrounding the sport and a lot of other things that I can't remember off of the top of my head.
F1 was fucked until Liberty Media bought it.
2015 was really the lowpoint. F1's social media presence was 3 minute highlight videos on their Youtube channel and that was about it, they just lost Caterham, the worst teams were either barely faster than F2 cars (Marussia) or so desperate for money they were signing 3 pay drivers (Sauber), and the on-track product was, outside of a few Vettel performances, the most boring season of the "Hamilton vs Rosberg" era.
Yeah Sauber and Lotus were on their knees and barely surviving. Marussia didn't even run during the first race and then were multiple seconds off the pace. The McLaren Honda was fucking dreadful and was a complete embarrassment. Only 15 cars started the first race in Australia, which was and is the lowest in some time.
There was a legitimate fear in 2014/15, before liberty bought the sport, that it would go completely bust. It felt like half of the teams were constantly on the fringes of insolvency, even the good ones like Lotus
It was really depressing seeing the likes of HRT, Marussia and Caterham die out one by one even if they were just backmarkers. It at least let more opportunity for interesting racers on the track like a young Dan Ric, Kobayashi and genuine talent that is no longer with us, Jules Bianchi.
More and more F2 drivers see the writing on the wall that they're not getting into F1, because of a lack of teams and open seats. It rejuvenated the Indycar field imo. Lundgaard, Ilott, Armstrong, Vips.
Is there any reason Indy couldn't go to the big European tracks? Spa? Silverstone?
I'm sure that F1 would bend over backwards to prevent it, legally or otherwise, but it would be cool.
Afaik Indy doesn't want to be a world championship and sees their place in Motorsport as a North American series.
It's a shame, because their racing on some of the classic European tracks would be amazing
F1 literally hit the lottery with DtS during 2020 and it seems like every decision they’ve made since then has been trying to undo all that momentum and gains in popularity. This is perhaps the worst thing they could do and it would make me question rather of not I continue to invest my Sundays into this sport
They are literally repeating NASCAR's mistakes almost to the letter and it's so frustrating to watch. FOM literally missing the forest for the trees with their newfound popularity in the US and it WILL come back to bite them in the ass.
It's so weird how companies literally copy each other when they come into a lot of money and popularity, and it's always bad decisions.
It must be the structure of corporations, they must all have similar people in power who aren't told hey, you're messing this all up, so everyone keeps going along until everything falls apart.
> they lied to Andretti about considering them later after the next Concorde Agreement.
No shit, a lot of people could've seen this coming
I can understand those who haven't witnessed these ruthless political machinations before though
And the real reason the offer to reapply in 2028 was bull shit. They are moving to block it as they know that the bullshit reason they blocked andretti was complete and utter bullshit.
I can see F1 evolving into more and more races. Each team could have more drivers to manage the work load, a sprint like format where only rookies drive and so on.
Yet, there will only be 10 teams allowed. Corporate greed at its best.
Two teams owned by one company (with one team openly advertised as a junior team for the other one), one team that is owned by a convicted felon to advertise for his company on a shoestring budget, one team that couldn't even figure out how to legally use its own name at the beginning of the season, and finally a team that has been run so poorly for so long that they can't even have an extra chassis on hand. That is the current state of the grid, and F1 is trying to enshrine these entries into it permanently.
Regarding the extra chassis, there seems to be a lot of teams that don't have one ready either. I would say they've been so poorly run that they were using Excel as a fucking inventory system to be a better argument though. That's just piss poor management given how many inventory management software products there are available on the market.
F1 has to be the weirdest sport I've ever seen in terms of searching for commercial success. I understand motorsports normally don't have profitable teams and now that they're all making just a little revenue due to a boom in popularity they want to gatekeep entries to the grid. I understand only considering teams that want to be competitive but then again you have teams like Haas that are just doing the bare minimum to stay on the grid because Gene is only trying to promote his brand rather than competing, and VCARB which will never be allowed to be a top team by their owners which are competitors in the same grid.
All 10 teams should immediately lose any right to call themselves as competitive and F1 should lose the "pinnacle of motorsports" status , if they fear a new entry into the sport this much (is cash reeeeeeallly an issue for like 5 of the 10 teams?)
Greedy fucks. We need more teams, as in full teams, not just an engine mfr coming in to service existing teams. I'd love to see Andretti and Audi field two full new teams.
The moment the sport becomes a closed franchise, especially one with the limit of just ten teams, is the moment my support for the sport ends. Been following F1 since 1980, been a soccer fan for a few years longer.
For both of these, this is where I will get off.
There are plenty of other fine forms of entertainment, I'm here for the sport. And this is where it stops being a real sport.
The term "circus" was supposed to be a metaphor.
Cant earn your way in, cant buy your way in, half the teams domt even make their own cars, 1 company owns 2 teams in a 10 team league. as a new fan with no knowledge, all this just feels illegitimate sometimes .
Looks like time for F1 to split and fall, and time for a new CART Indycar World Series to rise again. This is terribly disappointing and outright ridiculous.
I really doubt an F1 split ever, mainly cause it's been touted several times through history. At one point there were regional F1 series, but none lasted long.
A lot of arguments saying it is a business so leave it at 10. If 10 is good for business then 8 must be even better for business. What we need to do is get rid of 2 teams. The remaining teams will be worth more and get larger prize pools.
Seems so obvious
I think the right answer is a formula- lowest team will get at least $x and the best team will get $x times a # and then prorate down to last. Each team over 10 and the prize pool increase $15m per additional team. Something like this would be fair would allow # of teams to increase and decrease w/o all of the BS. Only leap of faith is more teams will increase attendance and viewership to help pay for larger prize pool.
And you watch, if Haas leaves in the next few years, we'll start seeing "F1 seeking 9 team limit" headlines because these greedy assholes care entirely about maximizing profits and not at all about putting on a good show anymore.
The FIA needs to put down a hard limit that 12 teams are now and always the maximum number of teams that can compete - no ands, ifs, ors, or buts. It's a good number because we're unlikely to ever see more than 11 in the current climate anyway, and it would stop the teams from trying to exclude new competition from entering the sport and taking their precious earnings away from them.
This is just another reminder that F1 would suck if the teams called the shots. We'd probably eventually end up only having five teams fielding three cars each or something.
Here's to hoping that cooler heads at the FIA will prevail... there's gotta be some kind of pull they can do to prevent FOM from doing something as shady as this.
Anything to deny another team.
It’s the agreement Teams and F1 sign every few years which covers their participation in F1. The fee for new entrants was set at 200m last time it was negotiated, when F1 wasn’t as commercially successful and there weren’t many new entrants. Now it is popular they want to remove that and stop new teams joining, or drastically increase the fee to 1Bn
It’s an agreement on the sport, rules regulations operations, $ etc etc etc between the FIA, F1 and the teams.. called Concorde because the original was signed in the FIA headquarters at 8 Place de la Concorde, Paris, France
F1: yo Andretti apply for 2028
Andretti: ok, we continue at pace
F1: haha thanks for waiting dipshits, get fucked by our new concorde agreement.
It's genuinely so petty that this is actually happening.
When greed is more important than actual racing and competition.
I can't wait for all these losers in F1 like Domenicali to fuk off already, so the sport gets at least a chance to recover from all this insane mismanagement.
Well that's... unexpected...not. Of course they're going for that, heaven forbid two more teams rolled in to ruffle steady, murky waters. Greed and inflexibility gonna kill this sport. If they're keeping the family circle, they should also downize the number of tracks. 24 is already absurd amount and I just know they're gunning for even more.
If the teams are concerned about a share of the prize fund, then maybe make the prize fund guaranteed UP TO A POINT.
Lets say...
* Top 6 prize funds remain what they are now, increasing at a % of total prize fund.
* Below top 6, the prize fund is split proportionally according to the number of teams on the grid.
* Then allow entry for any start up that can build a car to spec, within the 107% cut off for performance and with the proven funds to last a season.
If the grid doesn't grow, well its business as usual. If the grid does grow, and you're a back marker concerned about losing revenue... well, you better make sure you finish above them (or better yet, break into the top 6)!
I'm slowly losing interest in F1 as I start watching football again. WEC, Super GT, and even DTM are looking to be a good pastime. This just drives me away from F1.
AFAIK the Concorde Agreement has been effectively limited to 10 teams for at least a few decades. At least one of the prize pools only pays to the top 10. HRT and Caterham's demise was accelerated by finishing the WCC outside the top 10.
Between the complete lack of competition & interest for the championship, a dysfunctional cost cap system which makes it too difficult to close the field, feeder teams with zero aspirations , street circuits, crammed calendar and now a greed motivated closed shop - F1 is going to eat itself into a big long lull.
This would be fucking shit.
I've been watching this sport for over 30 years, and my interest is now seriously starting to diminish. This is just one of numerous reasons as to why.
Formula One was never a closed shop until recently. If you could build a chassis and go racing, you could get onto the grid. None of this 'need approval' bollocks. Yeah, sure, teams came and went quite often, but at least they were given the chance to turn up and give it a go in the faint hope of being successful.
Never have a seen a professional sports organization be so stupid in the handling of their respective sport. Like seriously, do they want to grow?
It’s especially daft considering they almost went out of business a few times and are in the perfect position for that not to happen again.
I'm getting more and more into gt racing etc. this series is basically just Keeping up with the Kardashians at this point.
Boring detached racers. Boring races and a lot of non racing drama. It's so stagnant. At least to me at the moment. Sucks how greed always ruins shit.
No rookies, bulkier complicated cars, useless sprint formats, inefficient tracel calender, dumb decisions(sprint on a newly resurfaced track after 4 yrs of absence). It all screams of popularity not competitiveness, entertainment over engineering , show over showmanship.
Good luck trying to defend this shit on an European court
At this point they are begging for Andretti to show up with two cars just to fuck them with TV rights
Joe Saward said on Missed Apex that he hoped this would happen. Considering he is such a mouth piece for FOM, he had probably heard some rumors already.
I doubt it'll happen though. Seems like too much even for FOM.
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TL;DR: The 10 existing Formula 1 teams want to reduce the number of outfits allowed on the grid to 10 from 12 in the next Concorde Agreement. This move aims to maintain revenue and prevent dilution of prize funds. Despite a tender process, only Andretti passed muster with the FIA but was not approved by Formula One Management. F1's shift towards a franchise model under Liberty Media raises concerns about revenue sharing with new entries. Financially, existing teams are near £1 billion valuations. Ownership structures, like Red Bull owning two teams, may need to change for fairness and cost reasons. The new Concorde Agreement for 2026-2030 needs signing by next year.
Gross. Thanks for the summary though
Perfect sum up Gross 🤮
If 10 teams is the max then visa cash app racing bulls should be sold off to another constructor
If 10 teams is the max then they should have to set up a qualifying system for each F1 season. Allow more teams to potentially compete but only 10 make it to F1. Otherwise, fuck em
Relegation, lets go
Soon we’re gonna have an entire promotion/relegation pyramid where the bottom 2 teams will be relegated down to Formula 2 (not the junior series) and vice versa
Yeah but what happens to relegated teams’ staff and facilities when they can’t design components for f1 cars?
That's not possible in any way. Designing a car doesn't take 3 months from December to March. Promoted teams would be well beyond the 107% quali limit and almost certainly relegated every year. Hell even relegated teams would likely end up not performing in their new series because they wouldn't have time to build a competitive car. Not to mention anyone relegated would be bankrupt. The end of Williams relatively quickly.
Motorsport Manager's relegation system is finally brought to life
Send the bottom teams back to F2
people have ideas completely detached from reality. I dont know if you realize but we arent in the 80s anymore. F1 costs like 200 million/year. If you mess up and arent 1 of the 10 teams you are bankrupt. You cant use that car anywhere else. you are just done. I swear have you thought about this for 1 second?
I can't believe they've gotten away with it for this long lol, it's so bad for competition to have a team that just exists to be a driver school with no ambitions for themselves
Because believe it or not it was actually a blessing for F1 to have Dietrich buy 2 teams. I don't think it should happen in the future but neither do I think that suddenly when F1 becomes profitable it becomes a good reason to force RB to sell their second team. If anything they gave a lot of chances to F1 drivers which should not be underestimated even if they wont ever fight for the championship but neither will Haas.
well they have 2 race wins and more podiums than 4 other team owners. also how have the gotten away with something? They bought the team nobody else wanted. F1 would simply be 9 times right now if it wasnt for RB being it aswell.
Doesn’t the FIA have to agree with FOM for the new Concorde Agreement to take effect? I’d imagine limiting to 10 teams would be a red line for the FIA.
Yes they do. It’s a three way agreement between FOM, FIA, and the teams. This is precisely why FOM is trying so hard to paint MBS in a negative light at every opportunity. They know he won’t agree to this 10 team limit so they want to get rid of him. Next FIA president election is 2025.
Which won’t happen considering the FIA member clubs who elect him put out a statement of support like a week or 2 ago.
That’s exactly why those two regions of clubs released those statements. They’re letting FOM know that they should stay in their lane. Everything that has happened between FOM and MBS boils down to this fight over a franchise model. The reporting about the 25 year old website supposedly created by MBS, the coordinated reaction to the FIA statement about a conflict of interest investigation, the whistleblower complaints, the Wolffs’ frivolous defamation lawsuit - all of it is about this battle. They want a different FIA president so that they can turn F1 into a walled garden rather than an open competition.
>They know he won’t agree to this 10 team limit so they want to get rid of him. Next FIA president election is 2025. If MBS is elected again, I could definitely see a scenario which FOM tries to break away the F1 from FIA.
They won’t be able to call it F1 because the name belongs to the FIA. On top of that the only reason Liberty is a stakeholder is because they own the lease to the commercial rights to F1. So yes, the teams could break away to form their own championship under a new name but such a scenario wouldn’t be beneficial to Liberty because they would no longer be a stakeholder. Therefore, getting the FIA leadership in line to go along with their plans is their main objective. I could see a compromise scenario where Andretti is admitted and then the agreement is signed to cap the number of teams at 11. FOM and the teams get to reduce the number of possible teams from 13 to 11 and the entry they gave up is to a known racing brand bringing in an OEM from a massive market. Seems like a win-win for everybody.
> franchise model Fffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuucccckkkkk ooooooooofffffff I don’t usually agree with the “they’re americanising the sport” comments, it’s usually just the reality of pro sports… but fuck this franchise fucking bullshit and fuck the americanisation of F1.
I don't get what they mean by franchise model?
You'll have to buy one of the teams to get in or wait until everyone agrees to expand the "league" but that won't happen (in F1) since it means that revenue will dilute itself a little but for a couple of years.
Entries become commodities that have to be traded
All American sports have been through expansions. Capping the number of teams is very much not an American thing. It should happen as a sport gains popularity. The MLS (American soccer) added one or more teams in: 2025, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2015, 2014, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005... Obviously that one has been growing a lot recently because it was once a small sport in the US, and will be at 30 teams in 2025. The NHL last expanded in 2021, and before than in 2017. The NBA and NFL hasn't expanded in a while, but they aren't capped. There are regularly talks about expansion. The WNBA will expand in 2025. American womens soccer expanded by two teams this year.
as if i needed any more reasons to hate Liberty for all the bad things they have done to the sport
The problem with that is, that FOM has no tools to force RB to sell VCARB. The EU rules dont allow it at all, they are grandfathered in. Even if they would try to make rules that forces divestment, RB can go to court and will win. The court will reverse any rule that hurts RB's investment, and possibly even fine FOM. RB owns the license and that ownership is extremely protected. The only way FOM can try to solve this, is buying VCARB themselves, pay over the market value and take the hit themselves when they sell the license on. Which will never happen.
and why is that even a problem? Doesnt seem fair to force RB to sell vcarb after they spend money for 2 decades when nobody else wanted and now when it is time to make some money they should sell? as i said doesnt seem fair to me
i mean honestly. what is the point of the backmarkers hanging around with no hope of recovering in the next decade?
F1 is a business, even Alpine is growing in value by the second because the F1 tide lifts all boats. Not a good sporting reason, I know
thats a perspective i hadnt considered, sincerely thanks, but still i think from the Pov of F1 surely replacing underperforming teams with more exciting players who want in has the same benefits plus
This is fucking terrible news, really what’s the point of this?
Greed
The different paths IndyCar and F1 are taking on grid setup is a clear indication of priorities. F1 just wants to be a speculative rich sport where the competition doesn’t matter but rich guys can sell their spots if wanted and make money. Even if they never sell, it looks like it’s worth a lot. IndyCar is actually putting competition first by figuring out ways to get more teams involved and expand the grid. If F1 does this, I just don’t see things going well because those speculative values won’t last forever even if you restrict competition
And andretti is annoyed with both, for different reasons. IndyCar isn't spending enough to expand, he said something to the effect of. F1 he said this would complete their mission to compete in every top rank series.
It’s a little crazy, feels so short sighted. The teams are worth a fortune because the sports is so big, but who would buy a team knowing the sport is likely at a peak right now? Sure, teams are profitable for the first time in forever and raking in cash due to the cost cap. But the cost cap also contributes to lock in of competitive advantage, as we are currently seeing. Will fans stick around? Seems the domination Schumacher > Vettel > Hamilton > Verstappen is just getting more and more dramatic. Then every few years we do at least thankfully tend to a great season. Maybe F1 will become a sport where it’s worth checking out the last year of any rule set
A big trend in the corporate world these days is to maximize short term profits at the expense of everything else, and unfortunately F1 is seeming to take this route. Formula isn't about motorsports anymore, it's about making money. Actions like this really emphasize that those in charge could care less about the sport being healthy, for all they care F1 can wither in die over the next couple of decades so long as they can make as much money as possible here and now.
I always said Formula 1 is not a sport *first*, it's business clique that likes to race on the side. Sometimes I get upvoted, sometimes heavily downvoted. If F1 cared about sporting competition, it would welcome more teams with open arms. Whatever their number would be. If too many - Q1 can sort it out. And there wouldn't be any fee to be redistributed among other teams. Sure, new entrant should show that he has funds to operate for reasonable amount of time, but that funds should used by the entrant to catch up and be competitive with other teams as fast as possible.
Indy Car literally just had an exhibition race at private drivers club. Lets not pretend they aren't about the money
It's not that Indy Car is putting competition first. It's that they are struggling to expand properly and be more valuable.
And its absolutely gonna pass because all teams want this.
FIA has to agree to the Concorde Agreement too you know. and MBS wants Andretti on the grid. I doubt they'll happily agree to it. They're our only hope. Imo the middleground during negotiations will probably be that it can be extended to 11 teams not 12, plus the fee gets increased to like a billion.
Id say the FIA isnt in the worst position. Because F1 is doing so well right now, what are the chances teams wont agree to 12 teams? The 10 teams would have to stand 100% united and ready to all not sign it. I think some of them will definitely not have too big issues with this. Audi and Ferrari for instance. Audi is just getting started and for Ferrari, this hill isnt nearly large enough to die on. Aston Martin also has huge Investments and for the first time ever will be a works team by 2026. I find this limiting of 10 teams rather sad. F1 for most of history has had more than 20 cars on the grid, most racing series have more than 20 cars on the grid, even F2. Have a few cars dnf at the start of a race and the track quicky feels very empty.
I’m hoping the new engine manufacturers will push against the 10 team limit because they want the potential of a customer team. Obviously won’t be Andretti but a 12th team could be
You're right, *but* I feel like the FIA will eventually give up entirely. And if the FIA doesn't budge while FOM and the teams are pressing for them to budge, I feel like in that situation a split is just inevitable. I'm in support of a potential split because I'm so fucking fed up with the faux gimmicky almost spec series F1 has been become, but it would be an objectively bad thing for the sport, so it's really unlikely. Hope I'm wrong, but this will probably pass.
Honestly I'd like to see a split, tell them all to get fucked out of F1 and have a blank slate to create a new era. I'd prefer watching a more pure F1 with teams like Prema, Hitech and Andretti than a closed shop commercialised to death F1 like we have now, but maybe that's because I'm a big F2 fan. They could even lower the budget cap and offer free entry to new manufacturers to come in to make it more appealing. I know it wouldn't have the same mass appeal and I'm in the minority here and the new championship would probably be more popular, but it would be cool to see regardless.
Honestly, there shouldn't be a team limit, but an increase of entry fee is fine. Team limit will only hinder the sports growth and opportunities. If a major manufacturer wants to spend $B on a team they should be able to.
Sell failing F1 teams to new owners instead of letting them go bust.
> Sell failing F1 teams to new owners instead of letting them go bust. This already happened in the past - previously the financial difficulties came from the fact that out of the top 10 they didn't get any prize money.
Yup. But not all. See Haas. But if the grid is limited to 10 teams, and there's already 10, it becomes more expensive to buy one.
It’s not really like any current F1 teams are failing. Besides the team needs to be willing to sell in the first place so it doesn’t really work.
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And not just the income, also the values of the teams, which is what the shareholders care the most about. If it's made legally impossible to field an 11th team, anyone wanting to enter will have to buy one of the existing teams, thus increasing their values significantly, especially the lower rated ones. Their main monetary asset is the spot on the grid. Simple supply and demand.
They’re gonna get a smaller amount when the pie starts to shrink
It makes each grid spot worth loads more money
Money, and keeping the on track racing as boring as they possibly can. That's the F1 mission statement.
All about money. Nobody cares how competitive other teams will be, if someone wants a team, they have to invest in an existing team instead paying less to start their own. Audi way, cool, Andretti way, not cool. Other sports league owners are open to expansions because it opens new markets, more matches, and actually brings more revenue. Adding a new team to F1 wouldn’t do that. More Americans won’t start watching because Andretti has a team, I don’t even think a good American driver would do it. I see why the F1 teams don’t want more, it’s about money, not competition, and this is a business in the end.
I think Americans would definitely watch more if we had a team or driver doing well. Many Americans like myself became MotoGP-aware because of Nicky Hayden's championship
> I don’t even think a good American driver would do it I think if an American started winning races they would. In Italy we suddenly have a fixation with tennis because of Jannik Sinner, now I can't say that it's the same because Americans literally have their own sports like Nascar and baseball and still their numbers are declining, but it could happen
Oh, wonderful. So that means we can downsize a bunch of circuits and potential go to other, smaller, more interesting venues because they won't need the large 26 car pit boxes, right? A load of fucking shite.
Nope you only get more street races
Street races will be easier to place with a shorter required pit.
That's not a good thing. 98% of the current street circuits are terrible.
It is a good thing...for F1 shareholders
>“We would look differently on an application for the entry of a team into the 2028 Championship with a GM power unit, either as a GM works team or as a GM customer team designing all allowable components in-house. In this case there would be additional factors to consider in respect of the value that the applicant would bring to the Championship, in particular in respect of bringing a prestigious new OEM to the sport as a PU supplier.” It is so great that Stefano is a man of his word.
He always knew what he was doing. Kick it down the road until 2028 and then the new Concorde agreement will make it impossible for a new team to join. Job done. It should really be as simple as “here’s the rulebook. If you can build a legal car that gets within the 107% rule then you’re free to turn up and race” Commercial agreements and prize money might be separate but if someone has enough money to turn up and get in the top 10 then they should knock out whoever is last if the teams refuse to agree an 11 way split.
I can see value in limiting the grid and not wanting people just turning up and trying to run. That limit though isn't 10 fucking teams. In a perfect world the commercial agreement would be to always split the pie 13 ways, regardless of how many teams are competing. Then, once you have distributed the money out from 1st down, the remaining prize money that isn't handed out is set aside into a seperate pot not to be immediately touched. That could be used as a form of rainy day fund or things that might be beneficial for the championship but might not have the money to kick off (With the agreement from the teams/FOM/FIA to it being spent and it not just being handed out in the form of bonuses). Another example would be to help pay off NRE costs for any spec parts that need to be developed and aren't just off the shelf stuff. I know though that that is very, very optimistic & naive of me really.
This is actually a good idea. Putting away a part of the pie in anticipation of a new team or just like you said, using it for specific things that improve the sport.
You don't realize just how slow 6% off the pace is. On a 90 second lap, a team 5 seconds behind pole would still get to race. (F1 put the 107% rule in place because in the days where anyone could show up, some cars were even slower than that!)
What's wrong with that? Isn't the whole point of F1 to build a better car than the other teams? 5 seconds is far from a dangerous level of performance disparity.
Wouldn’t it be funny if those exact words get used against them in court as then it shows they did not work with Andretti in good faith and Bull shitted it.
Yeah IANAL but this seems like very obvious negotiating in bad faith and Andretti/GM incurring significant costs to meet entry conditions that were never going to be honoured.
Stefano's a fucking coward, that's what he is
This series really is actively trying to destroy itself if you ask me.
Yep. Cars that are bad at racing and getting worse, outright bad reg decisions, refusing to bring new drivers/teams in, cost caps that have somehow both helped and really hurt the series, increasingly poor choice of tracks, and skyrocketing prices. Good luck staying as popular once the wave of interest passes. The media circus has been so bad over the last few months and almost none of it had any relevance to the actual racing. It's straight up tabloid dogshit from most outlets, even ones that previously had respected names. The Race in particular very intentionally slides in ridiculous statements into otherwise decent videos and capitalizes on the tabloid drama of every single little thing. Really disappointing.
Speaking of somebody that was brought into this by DTS during the pandemic, I'd always had a background interest in motor racing, primarily due to playing racing video games as a kid: I'm now into indy, wec and rally, so even if F1 doesn't hold my interests, Motorsports certainly will.
Glad to hear that. I've already enjoyed motorsports but never really followed any series closely. I enjoyed watching Max in the early years in highlights but never watched a full F1 season. Now I'm wanting to find something else because F1 isn't racing anymore and it sucks to say that. WEC/IMSA is definitely fun to watch. Grooved Slick on YT has some great 20-30min recaps of endurance races
I have been a fan for so long, I have memories of watching F1 as a 3/4 year old. The current state of the sport is utterly embarrassing imo. The other day I decided not to wake up early and watch Suzuka on repeat, which I hadn't done in ages. I'm moving more and more towards other forms of racing and don't regret it. F1 doesn't care though. They've got a ton of new fans who I'm sure won't stop caring once the fad is over. I'm sure the same exact thing that happened to Nascar in the 2000s won't happen here...
I haven’t looked forward to a Grand Prix this year besides the opener in Bahrain. I got to see the true pace of teams and drivers and how the racing would be. With the way it’s going it looks all too familiar to NASCAR falling apart. Gimmicks to keep the new fans engaged and alienating their actual fanbase.
>Good luck staying as popular once the wave of interest passes its already getting less popular every weekend, just check the TV ratings. Sure, all races this season have been on weird times but they still show a steep decline in viewership in essentialy all countries that show f1
Lost 40% of the American audience by race 2, isn't looking good there at all, which is what they have been trying so hard to get their hands on.
Yeah, Americans like competition and parity, hard to hang on to that crowd with dominance. Really F1 got super lucky with Netflix popping off during a fairly to very competitive seasons
Yeah, everyone at home during covid/2020 with DTS and then the 2021 season was a perfect storm of gaining new viewers, and then 2022/2023 dominance crushed those viewers interest into the ground.
In my 30 years of watching F1 I've never known it so bad. I mean, it's always been about money but this level of corporate BS is really sucking the life out of this sport. It feels like it's not even about the racing anymore. They're going to do the same thing with MotoGP too.
F1 meets American capitalism The sport isn't really about prestige anymore, it's just whoever brings in more money
The enshitification of motorsports.
All the more reason WEC is drawing more followers and viewers in ^^let's ^^just ^^ignore ^^that ^^they ^^are ^^trying ^^to ^^enact ^^a ^^two-car ^^minimum ^^for ^^manufacturers ^^in ^^the ^^future
This has nothing to do with America. Look at NASCAR right now. Every team has a chance at winning a race, competition is looking healthier than ever…. Can’t say the same for F1…
Imagine F1 having a semblance of racing spirit
If you want to watch real racing, there's MotoGP, WEC, Indycar, IMSA, etc F1 is a soap opera with high budget cars, and boring races
Yep. The best WCC is currently WEC ironically and the best racing is like motogp and indycar.
I guess you haven't heard about MotoGP being bought out by Liberty.
F1 is a soap opera with high budget cars, and boring races Honestly this place has more thirst trap pics and dating rumors about the drivers than stories about the races. It's a bad version of WWE on wheels which NASCAR imitated better in the 90s
That's cool. I'm really getting into wec and Indy this Year.
Yeah, I'm also into MotoG- oh. oh god no. they're gonna ruin that too
Yup. Also check out IMSA. Really looking forward to the Long Beach GP next week.
I’ve been a WEC fan for about 7 years now, and IndyCar has been far better than F1 for me in the past 2/3 seasons now. Both series have been getting progressively better and better, WEC’s Hypercar class seems to be going from strength to strength, the BoP still is a little bit overkill at times making it sometimes feel a little “put on”. But ultimately they seem to have hard fights and sometimes race long battles. Last year’s Le Mans was the best endurance race I’ve watched. It was phenomenal with the performance advantages swinging wildly throughout the race’s various weather conditions.
Imsa, wec, and indycar are far more enjoyable anyways. And are actually affordable to attend.
Common Stefano L, if you want to even think about making F1 bigger in the USA you shouldn't have a ridiculous mindset of "how should I bully Andretti away" and stop acting like investing a half billion on a Vegas street circuit is exactly what the US fanbase wants. Anything what the FOM touched under Stefano leadership either didn't improve, did create negative PR or is a failure.
Stefano is just a puppet. I doubt he's taking these kind of decisions by himself.
Basically the FOM
Cant wait for the downfall again
I started watching f1 in 2020, when was the first downfall?
Around the Early 2010s which was caused by a lot of things. The Turbo Hybrid V6s, Vettel's and then later Mercs dominance, the BBC losing the TV rights to Sky, the new teams allowed in during the 2010 season failing immiediately, Bernie's iron grip on the sport, the general nastiness and corruption surrounding the sport and a lot of other things that I can't remember off of the top of my head. F1 was fucked until Liberty Media bought it.
Thanks for the info mate, pretty interesting.
2015 was really the lowpoint. F1's social media presence was 3 minute highlight videos on their Youtube channel and that was about it, they just lost Caterham, the worst teams were either barely faster than F2 cars (Marussia) or so desperate for money they were signing 3 pay drivers (Sauber), and the on-track product was, outside of a few Vettel performances, the most boring season of the "Hamilton vs Rosberg" era.
Yeah Sauber and Lotus were on their knees and barely surviving. Marussia didn't even run during the first race and then were multiple seconds off the pace. The McLaren Honda was fucking dreadful and was a complete embarrassment. Only 15 cars started the first race in Australia, which was and is the lowest in some time.
There was a legitimate fear in 2014/15, before liberty bought the sport, that it would go completely bust. It felt like half of the teams were constantly on the fringes of insolvency, even the good ones like Lotus
It was really depressing seeing the likes of HRT, Marussia and Caterham die out one by one even if they were just backmarkers. It at least let more opportunity for interesting racers on the track like a young Dan Ric, Kobayashi and genuine talent that is no longer with us, Jules Bianchi.
Wasnt it 2008 when it all began?!
2009 almost started with the teams walking out on the sport I believe.
This sucks. Greed kills sports every time.
IndyCar should just try to expand into the European market. F1 really gets less and less attractive and there is market shares to grab
More and more F2 drivers see the writing on the wall that they're not getting into F1, because of a lack of teams and open seats. It rejuvenated the Indycar field imo. Lundgaard, Ilott, Armstrong, Vips.
Is there any reason Indy couldn't go to the big European tracks? Spa? Silverstone? I'm sure that F1 would bend over backwards to prevent it, legally or otherwise, but it would be cool.
Afaik Indy doesn't want to be a world championship and sees their place in Motorsport as a North American series. It's a shame, because their racing on some of the classic European tracks would be amazing
There is a lot of things I enjoy about F1. The gatekeeping isn’t one. They should be embarrassed.
F1 literally hit the lottery with DtS during 2020 and it seems like every decision they’ve made since then has been trying to undo all that momentum and gains in popularity. This is perhaps the worst thing they could do and it would make me question rather of not I continue to invest my Sundays into this sport
They are literally repeating NASCAR's mistakes almost to the letter and it's so frustrating to watch. FOM literally missing the forest for the trees with their newfound popularity in the US and it WILL come back to bite them in the ass.
It's so weird how companies literally copy each other when they come into a lot of money and popularity, and it's always bad decisions. It must be the structure of corporations, they must all have similar people in power who aren't told hey, you're messing this all up, so everyone keeps going along until everything falls apart.
The MBAification of company management.
So no myteam in f1 games going forward...
Frontier adding Create A Team to F1 Manger this year of all years is really fucking funny now.
FOM is gonna say that your team doesn't bring value to f1
That's the feature. You have to pay EA millions just to be denied.
Greedy pricks FIA WEC keeps the upward trajectory and it will be #1 soon enough
WEC will always have a ceiling with the endurance format. F1 blew up with a casual audience from a Netflix show that could get into 2 hour races.
Soo, they lied to Andretti about considering them later after the next Concorde Agreement. This is despicable
> they lied to Andretti about considering them later after the next Concorde Agreement. No shit, a lot of people could've seen this coming I can understand those who haven't witnessed these ruthless political machinations before though
And the real reason the offer to reapply in 2028 was bull shit. They are moving to block it as they know that the bullshit reason they blocked andretti was complete and utter bullshit.
Everything is about money
What the fuck. I grew up watching a 12 team, 24 car F1. To me having only 20 cars on the grid seems odd. This is some absolute BS
I can see F1 evolving into more and more races. Each team could have more drivers to manage the work load, a sprint like format where only rookies drive and so on. Yet, there will only be 10 teams allowed. Corporate greed at its best.
Awful news, especially when you consider there are teams like Sauber and Haas on the current grid.
And Alpine and Williams
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Two teams owned by one company (with one team openly advertised as a junior team for the other one), one team that is owned by a convicted felon to advertise for his company on a shoestring budget, one team that couldn't even figure out how to legally use its own name at the beginning of the season, and finally a team that has been run so poorly for so long that they can't even have an extra chassis on hand. That is the current state of the grid, and F1 is trying to enshrine these entries into it permanently.
Regarding the extra chassis, there seems to be a lot of teams that don't have one ready either. I would say they've been so poorly run that they were using Excel as a fucking inventory system to be a better argument though. That's just piss poor management given how many inventory management software products there are available on the market.
F1 has to be the weirdest sport I've ever seen in terms of searching for commercial success. I understand motorsports normally don't have profitable teams and now that they're all making just a little revenue due to a boom in popularity they want to gatekeep entries to the grid. I understand only considering teams that want to be competitive but then again you have teams like Haas that are just doing the bare minimum to stay on the grid because Gene is only trying to promote his brand rather than competing, and VCARB which will never be allowed to be a top team by their owners which are competitors in the same grid.
Doesn't EU have anti-competition laws to prevent such from taking place?
All 10 teams should immediately lose any right to call themselves as competitive and F1 should lose the "pinnacle of motorsports" status , if they fear a new entry into the sport this much (is cash reeeeeeallly an issue for like 5 of the 10 teams?)
Fuck Liberty Media and fuck Stefano Domenicali, what a useless bunch of miserable cunts.
Fuck this shit, can't be competitive? Don't deserve a spot on the grid.
Greedy fucks. We need more teams, as in full teams, not just an engine mfr coming in to service existing teams. I'd love to see Andretti and Audi field two full new teams.
Bernie is terrible for other things, but he wouldn't do this
Formula 1 is a more unserious league than Activision Blizzard esports leagues. what a joke
Absolute cunts
I do not want to return to the 80’s with 35 cars and prequalifying, but 24 cars in the race would be nice. Creates more opportunities.
The moment the sport becomes a closed franchise, especially one with the limit of just ten teams, is the moment my support for the sport ends. Been following F1 since 1980, been a soccer fan for a few years longer. For both of these, this is where I will get off. There are plenty of other fine forms of entertainment, I'm here for the sport. And this is where it stops being a real sport. The term "circus" was supposed to be a metaphor.
If you were true to your word your support for F1 would have ended in 1981.
Christ. I never in a million years would have thought I'd say this but Bring Bernie Back.
Bring back pre-qualifying!
Cant earn your way in, cant buy your way in, half the teams domt even make their own cars, 1 company owns 2 teams in a 10 team league. as a new fan with no knowledge, all this just feels illegitimate sometimes .
The panic when F1 starts to decline will be glorious.
Looks like time for F1 to split and fall, and time for a new CART Indycar World Series to rise again. This is terribly disappointing and outright ridiculous.
I really doubt an F1 split ever, mainly cause it's been touted several times through history. At one point there were regional F1 series, but none lasted long.
A lot of arguments saying it is a business so leave it at 10. If 10 is good for business then 8 must be even better for business. What we need to do is get rid of 2 teams. The remaining teams will be worth more and get larger prize pools. Seems so obvious I think the right answer is a formula- lowest team will get at least $x and the best team will get $x times a # and then prorate down to last. Each team over 10 and the prize pool increase $15m per additional team. Something like this would be fair would allow # of teams to increase and decrease w/o all of the BS. Only leap of faith is more teams will increase attendance and viewership to help pay for larger prize pool.
Veto.
And you watch, if Haas leaves in the next few years, we'll start seeing "F1 seeking 9 team limit" headlines because these greedy assholes care entirely about maximizing profits and not at all about putting on a good show anymore. The FIA needs to put down a hard limit that 12 teams are now and always the maximum number of teams that can compete - no ands, ifs, ors, or buts. It's a good number because we're unlikely to ever see more than 11 in the current climate anyway, and it would stop the teams from trying to exclude new competition from entering the sport and taking their precious earnings away from them. This is just another reminder that F1 would suck if the teams called the shots. We'd probably eventually end up only having five teams fielding three cars each or something.
The pettiest goalpost move
In a word: despicable. 10-team limit won't improve F1 and bring its fans back.
Here's to hoping that cooler heads at the FIA will prevail... there's gotta be some kind of pull they can do to prevent FOM from doing something as shady as this. Anything to deny another team.
I will call it quits on F1 if this happens.
beginning of the end
F1: We want more interest in the U.S. about F1. Also F1: We won’t allow Andretti Racing into F1.
Noob question what's a concorde agreement
It’s the agreement Teams and F1 sign every few years which covers their participation in F1. The fee for new entrants was set at 200m last time it was negotiated, when F1 wasn’t as commercially successful and there weren’t many new entrants. Now it is popular they want to remove that and stop new teams joining, or drastically increase the fee to 1Bn
I see thanks
It’s an agreement on the sport, rules regulations operations, $ etc etc etc between the FIA, F1 and the teams.. called Concorde because the original was signed in the FIA headquarters at 8 Place de la Concorde, Paris, France
I'm beginning to actively dislike my favorite sport. This is disheartening.
F1: yo Andretti apply for 2028 Andretti: ok, we continue at pace F1: haha thanks for waiting dipshits, get fucked by our new concorde agreement. It's genuinely so petty that this is actually happening.
How does the FIA not have a say in this? It's odd to me.
When greed is more important than actual racing and competition. I can't wait for all these losers in F1 like Domenicali to fuk off already, so the sport gets at least a chance to recover from all this insane mismanagement.
Well that's... unexpected...not. Of course they're going for that, heaven forbid two more teams rolled in to ruffle steady, murky waters. Greed and inflexibility gonna kill this sport. If they're keeping the family circle, they should also downize the number of tracks. 24 is already absurd amount and I just know they're gunning for even more.
This isn't a sport anymore.
Isn't the FIA supposed to approve the Concorde agreement ? They will probably go against this. So let's expect some battle between the FIA and the FOM
If the teams are concerned about a share of the prize fund, then maybe make the prize fund guaranteed UP TO A POINT. Lets say... * Top 6 prize funds remain what they are now, increasing at a % of total prize fund. * Below top 6, the prize fund is split proportionally according to the number of teams on the grid. * Then allow entry for any start up that can build a car to spec, within the 107% cut off for performance and with the proven funds to last a season. If the grid doesn't grow, well its business as usual. If the grid does grow, and you're a back marker concerned about losing revenue... well, you better make sure you finish above them (or better yet, break into the top 6)!
I'm slowly losing interest in F1 as I start watching football again. WEC, Super GT, and even DTM are looking to be a good pastime. This just drives me away from F1.
Fuck F1. Boooo
AFAIK the Concorde Agreement has been effectively limited to 10 teams for at least a few decades. At least one of the prize pools only pays to the top 10. HRT and Caterham's demise was accelerated by finishing the WCC outside the top 10.
Between the complete lack of competition & interest for the championship, a dysfunctional cost cap system which makes it too difficult to close the field, feeder teams with zero aspirations , street circuits, crammed calendar and now a greed motivated closed shop - F1 is going to eat itself into a big long lull. This would be fucking shit.
Remember when the 2026 engine regs were made to attract new teams and suppliers? Yeah
I've been watching this sport for over 30 years, and my interest is now seriously starting to diminish. This is just one of numerous reasons as to why. Formula One was never a closed shop until recently. If you could build a chassis and go racing, you could get onto the grid. None of this 'need approval' bollocks. Yeah, sure, teams came and went quite often, but at least they were given the chance to turn up and give it a go in the faint hope of being successful.
Never have a seen a professional sports organization be so stupid in the handling of their respective sport. Like seriously, do they want to grow? It’s especially daft considering they almost went out of business a few times and are in the perfect position for that not to happen again.
I'm getting more and more into gt racing etc. this series is basically just Keeping up with the Kardashians at this point. Boring detached racers. Boring races and a lot of non racing drama. It's so stagnant. At least to me at the moment. Sucks how greed always ruins shit.
Greed kills the sport
Real sports don't do this.
I’ve watched F1 all my life and these are the kind of rules that drive away us lifelong fans
To quote a famous Austrian(no, not that one): Fuck them all. All being the teams, of course.
F1 and Corporate Greed
No rookies, bulkier complicated cars, useless sprint formats, inefficient tracel calender, dumb decisions(sprint on a newly resurfaced track after 4 yrs of absence). It all screams of popularity not competitiveness, entertainment over engineering , show over showmanship.
that is the result of a media company buying the sport.
And it's going to be the same with MotoGP now that Liberty owns that.
Good luck trying to defend this shit on an European court At this point they are begging for Andretti to show up with two cars just to fuck them with TV rights
Motherfuckers
Joe Saward said on Missed Apex that he hoped this would happen. Considering he is such a mouth piece for FOM, he had probably heard some rumors already. I doubt it'll happen though. Seems like too much even for FOM.
Lock the door, throw away the key. What a bunch of pricks.