Rejected 11th team applicant makes major claim over Haas F1 team

Such were the FIA’s requirements for the 11th team, LKYSUNZ CEO Benjamin Durand says Haas “wouldn’t” have made it and has revealed the FIA “got upset” over his offer to triple the anti-dilution fund.

When the FIA opened the application process for potential teams to secure the 11th spot on the Formula 1 grid, they set out several criteria ranging from sporting to financial.

Four prospective teams applied but after months of due diligence, the FIA announced that only Andretti-Cadillac had ticked all of the boxes.

‘If Haas had been in with the bid with us, I think they wouldn’t have passed the bid’

Durand’s LKYSUNZ was one of those who missed out despite announcing in mid-September he’d secured additional funding that would allow him to pay the reported $600m that the existing teams wanted as the anti-dilution payment.

But when all was said and done,only Andretti got the nod.

Durand reckons that’s because the bar was set so high that he doubts Formula 1’s last new entrant, Haas, who joined the grid back in 2016, would’ve met the FIA’s approval.

“We knew that there was a possibility that they take only one team,” Durand toldThe Race.

“Honestly, I would have thought there would have been 12 and the decision would be between us and the two other ones [Rodin and Hitech] that have been rejected [to join Andretti] because what I can say is this: from what I know from the teams that have been bidding that – again, I’m not privy to everything – but all of them are at the level of competing with Haas or AlphaTauri and this kind of thing.

“Andretti is coming to a level that is much higher because he wants to compete for winning etc, so he has a better bid. Okay.

“But if Haas had been in with the bid with us, I think they wouldn’t have passed the bid. The bar is so high this time that probably Haas if you compared to their bid a few years ago, wouldn’t have got over the bar either.”

Durand believes his LKYSUNZ missing out wasn’t a case of them not meeting the criteria, rather it was the FIA not wanting to push for two additional teams giventhe existing teams are already up in armsabout one new entrant taking a slice of the prize pot pie.

“OK, that’s the way it is, the bar is higher, but I don’t think for us it’s technical or commercial or financial. I think there was no way,” Durand continued.

“我认为他们试图推动12个团队。我认为they then saw [the pushback] and so decided not to try to push.

“There is a lot of tension right now between F1 and the FIA about the 11th team. If they had approved a 12th team it would probably be even harder for them.

“So my guess – again, I am not in the FIA or a team – but the quality of the last four bids were high enough to justify [acceptance], I mean you could have had even 14 teams.

“What I’m trying to say is that all of the four of us were good enough. This is what I think.

“I don’t think the issue comes from being able to develop our car or anything like that, especially for the ones looking to come in from 2026 or 2027. But OK, that’s the way it is.”

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‘For some reason the FIA got upset by this…’

Durand didn’t go into the reasons why the FIA rejected his bid but did reveal motorsport’s governing body wasn’t happy withhis offer to triple the anti-dilution fund payment to the existing teams.

有担保的资金增加,从the mandated $200m to the $600m being bandied about in the media, Durand revealed “for some reason, the FIA got upset by this. I don’t know why because it was not to do with the FIA.

“We were replying to the comments people like Zak Brown are doing the weeks before in Singapore, saying they would not consider anyone coming if they were not willing to pay this kind of amount. And we discuss it with our backer and they say ‘yeah’.

“Again, we are coming to help this championship to grow in markets where it’s not present right now. So those kind of investment for the backers is sensible because they think the value of the team with us in the championship will be good and it will grow over time because it will help the championship to grow.

“We were going to the teams and saying, ‘OK, if the time comes and we need to sit down to discuss these kinds of things we are open to this because we understand the belief, we understand the worth’.

“We are not coming as someone who wants to disturb, I mean it will be crazy for us to arrive, put this kind of money in the championship to destroy it. That would make no sense.

“We want to help the championship to grow and for the championship to grow in those territories.”

The LKYSUNZ CEO is not giving up on his Formula 1 dream, saying one never knows what the future holds.

“We know that in the FIA and F1, many people and teams come and go, you don’t know what tomorrow is,” he said. “And again, I think they realise – F1, FIA – that they need those countries, and they need those new markets, and they need diversity because they are still a big issue in F1.

“They cannot always push it under the rug and go, ‘Oh yeah, we tried’, but nothing is happening. That would create a problem for them down the line.

“So they’d better do something right now for it and we could be one of the solutions.”

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