Ross Brawn indicates more teams could join F1 once pandemic eases, signals inclusion of Russian team

Ross Brawn, F1 Managing Director has hinted that they are considering increasing the total number of teams from 10 currently.

Formula One currently has 10 teams competing in the championship. Out of them, Ferrari, McLaren are Williams have been competing for a long time. On the other hand, F1 also has newbies like Haas, Alfa Romeo and Racing Point.

Racing Point – Aston Martin from next year – was earlier known as Force India. As the name suggests, it was an Indian consortium with its headquarters in Silverstone, United Kingdom.

Russian team in Formula One?

Now there are suggestions that we could see a fully-owned Russian team in F1. Before this, we had Marussia from 2012 to 2015, an Anglo-Russsian team. Marussia is a now-defunct sports automobile company from Moscow, the capital of Russia.

Rumours about Russian billionaire Boris Rotenberg buying a team for F1 has been circulating since last year. He had this to say when asked about his interest in a field a Russian team in F1.

“Do we want to create a Formula 1 team? I think the more teams there are, the more opportunities there will be for our drivers.”

This statement got more weight-age since Russian trade minister Denis Manturov boasted a F1 team is “not far off”.

Ross Brawn coy on more teams joining F1

Ross Brawn had his say on this, pointing out that such a discussion is redundant until the coronavirus pandemic eases. He was speaking to RT on the future of Formula One amidst the pandemic.

“We need a period of stability after this global pandemic. And we also want to ensure the new rules settle down from 2022.”

Also read: Sochi in Russia added to the F1 2020 Calendar

He also spoke about how attractive Formula One will become once the new regulations kick-in in 2022. Formula One has been pushing for budget caps since quite some time, and Brawn says this will help bring in new investors.

“The new economic climate within Formula 1, budget caps and a more fairly distributed prize fund makes an investment in a Formula 1 team far more attractive.”

“If there was interest from a Russian team or any other that we thought was sustainable then we would be fully open to exploring the opportunity.”