EUR19 Million Entry Deposit for F1's 13th Team

Bernie Ecclestone has had enough with new coming teams that barely find a decent pace in the Formula One championship, as all the outfits that have been welcomed in the series in 2010 are now struggling to develop a challenger able to come within 3 to 6 seconds to the pace-setters in qualifying or race.

Consequently, the 79-year old Brit has now decided that no team should be considered for the 13th entry of the 2011 Formula One Championship unless a EUR19 million will have been deposited from the get go. This would be a first proof that the team is healthily funded for a long and competitive campaign in the Great Circus.

In recent years, the International Automobile Federation (FIA) has done everything possible to attract new teams to F1 – considering the economic crisis worldwide – including scrapping the $48 million bond a new team had to commit to in order to submit an F1 entry. However, the latest experiences with Lotus, Virgin and HRT had made Ecclestone take a few precautionary measures for the years to come.

Even so, there still seems to be at least 3 interested teams to enter F1 next season, despite the recent withdrawal of ART Grand Prix (a GP2 team headed by Nicolas Todt, the son of FIA's president Jean Todt). Those three outfits are US group Cypher, Basque team Epsilon Euskadi and this year's hopefuls Stefan GP.

“We have told them that if they can't put 16 million (British pounds) in now we don't want them. If they can't find that now there is no way they are going to run,” admitted Ecclestone, according to London's Evening Standard.