“I would be surprised if one or two of them make the end of the season. I think there are a couple of teams who really shouldn't be there. They are a bit out of their depth at the moment,” said Ecclestone in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, hinting that it would actually be better if that'll happen.
Ever since the off-season testing last winter, it was pretty clear that it was going to be an incredible gap in performance between the already established teams of F1 and the 3 newly entries (Lotus, Virgin and HRT). This was immediately translated into lap times some 4 to 6 seconds slower for the new cars, which caused both traffic and safety issues in the first part of 2010 (the Mark Webber-Heikki Kovalainen incident speaks openly about it).
Ecclestone reckons it was a mistake to have that many teams in F1, saying that he now wishes there were only 10 squads in the roster. Needless to say, Lotus would be the only team he'd want to see in the Great Circus for the years to come, not only for their decent development rate this season, but more importantly for their name.
“All we ever want is 10 teams. Lotus is a good name. I wouldn't want to lose them. (...) The bottom line is they haven't really and truly given us value for being there. If suddenly these teams don't turn up at races then I don't think the crowds will get any smaller, or the TV sets will turn off, or the newspapers will stop writing, will they?” rhetorically asked Ecclestone.
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