The sport’s governing body has opened up a selection process for a new team to join the grid, potentially as early as the start of the 2015 F1 season.Interested applicants have until Friday 3 January 2014 to register a formal expression of interest.
Following the demise of HRT at the end of the 2012 season, we saw only 11 teams take part in this year’s championship.
We’ve not seen a new team in the sport since the start of 2010, when Lotus Racing (Caterham), Virgin (Marussia) and Hispania (HRT) joined the F1 grid. Aside from them, only two other teams – Toyota and Super Aguri – have joined the sport since 2002.
A statement on the FIA’s official website read:
“The FIA has decided to open a new selection process to identify a candidate team to participate at a competitive level in the FIA Formula One World Championship from the start of the 2015 or the 2016 season up to 2020 inclusive. The overall long-term interests of the Championship will determine which candidates are selected.”
The FIA also published the requirements for applying as well as the applicable application selection criteria.
Applicants will be judged on:
While the FIA plans to announce any new team on 28th February 2014, they have stated that in the event that “no candidate is deemed suitable by the FIA and the commercial rights holder, no additional team will be selected”.
Photo Credit: By Alan from Doncaster, UK (P1060288) [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons
