F1 News: Guenther Steiner Fires Warning To Hopeful New Teams
Several team bosses have been against the addition of new teams in Formula 1 and the FIA has been involved in discussions with them to find a common way out. The latest 'protest' comes from Haas team principal Guenther Steiner who, like many others, is of the opinion that the addition of more Formula 1 teams could make the sport 'unstable.'
The comments come at a time period when the FIA would announce the names of successful applicants who have been shortlisted for entry into F1 in 2025. Andretti Cadillac and Hitech Grand Prix are the two most probable arrivals into the sport if they are approved.
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Just a month ago, Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff raised safety concerns with the addition of an eleventh team in the grid. Steiner voiced his concern ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix that is more to do with financial stability. He said:
“You have 10 very stable teams which are all technically stable, financially stable.
"If you put another team in and maybe somebody gets in jeopardy in three or four years time, maybe only eight or nine teams will be left.
"The business is run by FOM [Formula One Management] and they need to make sure that this is sustainable.
"At the moment we are at the peak. Formula 1 is growing and there is never an end to it. We could have 56 races in a year and 22 teams in a year, and [everyone] would be happy.
“I think we made big growths in the last year. [Now], it is very stable. We have ten very good teams and if you change something, you could go the other way.
"If you do too much and the teams aren’t stable anymore, what would you achieve then?
"You’ll be sitting here in three years saying you’ve lost a team because it went bankrupt.”
Steiner fails to mention the probability of the sport doing even better than it is now after the addition of new teams. In fact, he continued to sound more negative by saying:
“So if all of a sudden it could be 12… F1 is a pretty old sport and there were never 10 good teams.
"There was a business plan from FOM to get us to this place. This didn’t happen by accident. There were deeds done, agreements and a lot of work was done.
"[With] their plan, they don’t want to risk it, what they are doing, by admitting more [teams] for no good reason."
Is Steiner being pessimistic because new teams would make the competition a lot tighter or is there something that he knows which we don't from a business point of view, when he hinted about deeds, agreements, and plans?