Minardi “The idea of joining the F1 Championship without having a background as a constructor is madness”
Few months ago FIA issued a call for a tender in order to recruit new teams to join the F1 Championship, as it happened in 2010, when squads such as HRT, Virgin Racing (today Marussia) and Lotus Racing (today Caterham) joined the top series.
Three teams are interested in joining the Circus, so far: Stefan GP, Haas Racing and a team directed by Colin Kolles “The idea of joining the F1 Championship without having a background as a constructor is madness. You cannot take on take on the role of constructor from one day to another”, says Gian Carlo Minardi “I get the feeling that it’s more a matter of promoting their image rather than anything else. To allow teams who are not constructor teams to join the top series wouldn’t bring any advantage to F1.”
As a matter of fact, the last teams who joined the World Championship have demonstrated that it’s very difficult to establish a team starting from the basics “The recent past has to set a trend. The last teams who joined the Championship took on the role of constructors, without having a background as constructors. If we also consider that it’s very difficult to find the required financial resources, we can understand that the whole situation is really complicated”, continues the manager from Faenza who started his racing career competing in the Formula Italia Championship and founded the Minardi F.1 Team who ran 340 GP throughout the course of 21 years. In the ‘80s, he also competed in the Formula 2 Championship before shifting to F1. “The situation of the Lotus Team and Red Bull Racing is different. The squad managed by Eric Bouiller grounds its roots in Formula 2. It rose from the ashes of Renault, Benetton and Toleman, while Red Bull bought the former Jaguar Racing (Stewart Grand Prix).”
The new team would replace HRT, who left the Circus two years after their entry, because of financial issues. On February 28th FIA and FOM will make the first announcements about that. We’ll lie in wait for future announcements.
