Why Stefan GP wants more grid slots

Today’s story – if there was one – is that Stefan GP is trying to convince everyone that there should be 14 teams in Formula 1. That is not going to happen. It cannot happen, even if Bernie Ecclestone would like to see it. First of all that would set an unhealthy precedent for the FIA at this late stage. It would also require all the teams to agree to let it happen (because the Concorde Agreement bans more teams on the grounds of safety) and one cannot imagine the weaklings being too keen to let in a team with what might be a half-decent (ex-Toyota) car – for the simple reason that this would deprive them of income.

More to the point, however, one needs to ask why Stefan has suddenly changed his tune. The only obvious explanation is that it is fast becoming clear in Belgrade or Cologne that the two stray teams that he had hoped would disappear are not going to dematerialise and will pop up either at the first race, or at some time very shortly after that. The details of how this will happen are not obvious yet, but from what I am hearing both Campos Meta 1 and US F1 will appear, perhaps with different faces (and therefore different money) behind them.

Both teams have entries and the makings of cars. Both teams have got at least one driver with some sponsorship, so this is clearly a very good time for those with cash to be buying into such vulnerable operations. The current owners of the shares are looking failure full in the face and will no doubt settle for less than might have been the case a few months ago. If they say no, they hit the wall and that will be painful.

My guess, therefore, is that we will see USF1 taking on a rather different form. There is already talk that some of the original partners have been “parked” and one can imagine that one of the many wealthy and well-connected folk in the United States will now sweep in and do what is necessary to get the team moving and, by doing so, increase the value of their investment considerably. We might even have a situation where the team could have a full set of Americans in charge and even perhaps an American driver. That would be nice.

There is a certain irony in the fact that the weak teams with new money behind them could (in theory at least) become the owners of all the Stefan GP kit, if that project flops. Toyota will probably not care that much…

Over in Spain there seems to be a rather similar situation, by all accounts. Adrian Campos appears to be on the verge of leaving his name behind him and his partner Jose Ramon Carabante is being tipped to have plans to take over the whole thing, if only to protect his investment. The entrepreneur was linked to a deal with Volkswagen, which was quickly denied by the Germans, but one cannot help but wonder if there might have been some small grain of truth in the idea. Let me explain: if you were Carabante, what would you do? You need money and Spanish companies are not handing it over. You want the team to be seen to be Spanish so the first thing you are going to do is to look for a Spanish driver. There is a lot of talk of 23-year-old rookie Adrian Valles having cash, which (oddly) has been linked to USF1. He is not experienced in F1, although he has tested some F1 cars and won the Superleague Formula last year, which means that he is not completely hopeless.

The other thing Carabante might try is to do is to come up with a deal with the other people in Spain who wanted to be in Formula 1 a few months ago. They have a monstrous great factory with nothing much happening in it: not to mention some decent ex-F1 people and a super new windtunnel. Step into the spotlight Epsilon Euskadi. There was a time when that team thought it had the money to do the job, but the money was dependent on the entry and the entry was dependent on the money and the eggs and the chickens got mixed up… If there is an entry and a car (from Dallara or Toyota), and the original backers are still out there somewhere, they might be a deal to be made.

What else would you do? Spain has one automobile manufacturer which is still in business and one really good automotive brand with a competition history which is defunct – at least in the car world. The first is SEAT, which is owned by Volkswagen (don’t jump to any conclusions just yet) and the other is Hispano Suiza, which no longer makes cars and is now (sadly) a company belonging to a French group called Safran, created by the 2004 merger between the nasally-unpleasant Snecma and Sagem firms (which were basically involved in aviation). Hispano Suiza now builds transmissions for jet engines. If you were the French and someone turned up on your doorstep asking to buy the brand name for use in the automotive world, you might at least listen. It is money for old rope, isn’t it? And you know that Bugatti did a similar deal a few years back. So, to go back to the previous logic, if Stefan GP has no entry but is keen to buy the Dallara chassis to get the Campos entry, it might be an idea for you to go to Toyota and ask if they are interested in selling the Stefan GP package to you for the creation of a Hispano Suiza F1 team. That would be poetic licence, would it not?

Anyway, that is enough “blue sky” theorizing.

Let us, however, take a look at SEAT. This is supposed to be a rather sporty company building cars for young Spaniards of the Fernando Alonso generation. The company was heavily involved in touring car racing but recently decided to get out. However, because it builds small cars, it is now doing all right in the recession as people can just about afford these and SEAT has big plans to accelerate out of the recession by expanding into the South American markets where it can use Volkswagen factories to build sporty little cars for the Brazilian market. Having Bruno Senna driving a SEAT in Formula 1 would thus make a lot of sense. But this probably as far as it goes because the company recently got new management in the form of Scotsman James Muir, previously the boss of Mazda Europe. The SEAT brand is developing a range of new models, with no less than four different vehicles planned for production, but Formula 1 seems far-fetched, even if it was just an engine badging and supply deal. Still SEAT does have a bunch of competition engineers doing not a whole lot at the moment.

The other point is that it is probably not the moment for SEAT to launch into F1 because Muir recently had a showdown with the unions (which he won) and will not want to rock the boat for a bit.

We will see. Bahrain is but a month away…