Rules for Introducing a New Formula 1 Team

Currently we have ten teams duking it out in Formula 1, which some people might say is enough. However, other fans wish the grid to be bigger, but it’s not easy at all to introduce new teams. Well, there are two ways you can do that, the hard way or the very hard way.

The hard way sounds like this: you find an already existing team that has money problems or just wants out of the Grand Prix scene, you buy that team with all the equipment, engineers, headquarters, rebrand the team and, congratulations, you have your own team!

But just so you know, Lawrence Stroll bought the Force India squad (later known as Racing Point and now Aston Martin) back in 2018, for $117 million. For Lawrence Stroll, that’s pocket money. What a bargain, right? However, if you want to start fresh, don’t sweat it because we have the very hard way coming up.

To build a team from scratch, you need to pay a small fee of $200 million (about twice the cost of a high end private jet) to the FIA to even be considered at the big boys' table. This money will be shared between the other teams, so in a way you are helping the enemies.

Then you need to make sure that all your infrastructure is on point. We are talking about hundreds or even thousands of top tier engineers with experience and very good technical abilities.

Facilities such as a wind tunnel for testing aerodynamics, factories for building components, race simulators, a private track and many more are a must as well. All of this can take years to develop. In the end, if everything meets the requirements, the FIA will approve your entry in the F1 world.

From this point things get even harder because you will need to build a car that meets the safety standards, respects the strict rules of Formula 1 and will be competitive for at least points places.

That means you need to spend more money than the first $200 million. For example, Gene Haas (the owner of Haas F1 Team) has spent around $100 million per every season since 2016.

Even if you do all these things perfectly and invest a lot of money, success is not guaranteed. A good example is what happened to Toyota just a decades ago.

Toyota was and is a giant in the automotive industry, with billions to spend for a sport such as Formula 1. So, they were supposed to make their debut on the big scene in 2001, but the Japanese automaker decided to cancel so they can spend more time on the development, and finally entered F1 for the 2002 season.

By 2009, when Toyota exited the sport, they had a total of zero victories. Back in the old days, if you had four wheels, a steering wheel, a transmission and a good mechanic, you were good to race. The requirements were less strict but at the same time F1 was not as big and popular as it is today.

Nowadays, it’s very hard to enter the exclusive life of the Formula 1 family but maybe that’s why it is so exclusive. They do not let uninvited guests come to their private party.

So, if you are very rich and have about half a billion dollars to spend you can either create your own F1 team or maybe you can buy a private island and a yacht.