Alpine favours more entrants in F1, not third cars

Alpine executive director Marcin Budkowski believes more teams joining the grid would be better for Formula 1 than existing outfits adding a third car as a means of expanding the sport's field.

Since 2015, Formula 1 has functioned with ten entrants, with Caterham and Marussia the last outfits to fall off the grid.

However, the sport's current field of 20 cars leaves few opportunities for junior drivers to step up to Formula 1. Case in point, Alpine young gun Oscar Piastri currently leads the FIA Formula 2 Championship, but if the Aussie wins the title, there will be no seat on the 2022 grid to allow the young charger to step up to the next level.

Under Formula 1's current Concorde Agreement, which governs the financial relationship between the teams and the sport's commercial rights holder, any new outfit that ambitions to join the grid must fork out a $200 million "anti-dilution" fee, a sum that is divided between F1's existing competitors.

Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff advocates teams entering a third car for a mandatory rookie driver to boost numbers and "if financially it can be accommodated".

But Budkowski considers that attracting new teams is a better approach, which begs the question, should F1 revise its $200 million entry fee policy?

"It’s a complicated question. I’m going to try to give a simple answer," said Budkowski in Sochi.

"It would be good to have more teams in Formula 1. I think we would all welcome that.

"But they need to be the right teams and they need to bring value to the sport and I think that’s one of the reasons that the anti-dilution fee was brought in, to make sure that people who come are really financially sound and solid, to be able to run a Formula 1 team, which as you know is a very expensive business to run.

"Equally, it was also a way to ensure that when the Concorde Agreements were negotiated that all the teams would be reassured that the cake wouldn’t be split in more slices, with newcomers entering the sport in an uncontrolled manner.

"It was a measure that was mostly brought in to give confidence to the existing 10 teams that they would be looked after if there were new teams coming.

"Should that be scrapped? To be honest, it’s a question for the commercial rights holder, a question for Stefano [Domenicali, F1 CEO] in that case.

"But yeah, more teams would bring more diversity to the sport, bring more drivers in the sport for sure.

"I think it’s a better outcome than having three cars per team as has been mooted by some other people in the recent past."

• Read also: Aston Martin to consider setting up young driver program

AlphaTauri boss Franz Tost says he isn't a fan of F1 teams becoming three-car entrants, for financial and practical reasons.

"There have always been too few seats in Formula 1," the Austrian told Sport1. "At the moment, there are 20 cars and the best drivers are in them.

"At Red Bull, we give the youngsters test drives in older cars. Another alternative would be to let them drive another season in F2, or in DTM or Indycar.

"You can also make your way from these series. Those who are really talented will end up in Formula 1 at some point.

"I don’t see the third car. That starts with who is going to finance it. Besides, the paddock and pits are at their limit in terms of space. I don’t even know where to put the third car."

Ferrari racing director Laurent Mekies suggests a change to F1's testing rules to help teams provide young drivers with F1 mileage.

"I think it was a very good summary from Marcin," said Mekies.

"I think trying to focus on the young driver aspect of the question, ultimately you still want the 20 best drivers to be on the grid and what we need to come up with as a group is to find a way to give a chance to the young guys that are coming to be able to demonstrate whether they are part of the top 20.

"I don’t think it’s so much a matter of making it a top 22 or 24 or 26 or whatever, but it is a matter to have the opportunity to have the testing opportunities to make sure that we don’t miss one of these young drivers coming up, a guy or a young woman that is potentially within these 20 best drivers in the world."

To help promote young talent, Formula 1 is set to mandate that all teams run a rookie driver in at least two practice sessions next season. But the move won't solve the lack of racing opportunities issue facing junior drivers.

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