No more new teams for 2016, FIA confirms

This year's application process for more teams wishing to enter Formula One has ended with no successful candidates emerging.

The FIA opened a new round of selections inviting expressions of interest from possible new teams back in May, and subsequently extended the process by an extra four weeks apparently as a result of receiving approaches by two unspecified organisations needing more time to organise their bid.

However, on Friday the FIA announced that no successful applications had emerged from this year's process, which has now concluded with the decision that no new teams will be on the grid in 2016 other than Haas F1 Team, which had already been handed a grid slot in a previous round of applications but opted to defer its Grand Prix début by a year in order to be fully prepared.

"We can confirm that the FIA received two candidate Formula One team applications for vacant grid slots," said an FIA spokesman.

"We subsequently put these through our comprehensive diligence processes.

"Unfortunately none of the applicants were able to meet the FIA’s criteria for new teams despite being granted every opportunity of doing so, and we now consider this round of applications to be closed."

The FIA's announcement means that the number of teams entered on the grid in 2016 will remain at 11.

The tender process also covered entries for 2017, but the FIA has not ruled out revisiting the matter and giving companies a second chance at coming into Formula One at the later date should a significant credible candidate come forward, such as Audi or Renault wishing to create a works team from scratch rather than buying out an existing team on the grid.

The names of the organisations that had made applications has not and will not be released. ART Grand Prix had been thought to be one of the teams interested in applying, but it's considered unlikely that they actually did so after reviewing the documentation supplied by the FIA to interested parties.

The criteria given by the FIA for the application process included:

• The technical ability and resources of the team;
• The ability of the team to raise and maintain sufficient funding to allow participation in the championship at a competitive level;
• The team's experience and human resources; and
• The value the candidate may bring to the championship as a whole.

When the FIA opened the new tender process in the spring, it made clear that its decision would be made in "the overall long-term interests of the championship" and that it would not necessarily result in an increase in numbers of teams in the paddock if it felt there were no genuinely viable candidates.

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