How F1's new team conservatism has already seen off one credible bid

When Andretti was announced to have passed the FIA's assessment process for an 11th Formula 1 team with a view to joining the field in either 2025, 2026, or 2027, it came at the expense of the other three entrants that had made it into the "second phase": Hitech, LKYSUNZ, and Rodin.

The FIA cited that Andretti "was the only candidate to meet the stringent criteria that were set by the FIA in all material respects from the four teams which lodged formal applications", which not only featured both technical and sporting capabilities but also evidence of funding and sustainability cases to ensure that F1 can continue to meet its goal of "net zero" by 2030. Teams were also required to demonstrate methods of producing "positive societal impact" through the setup of the team. Andretti has so far not officially disclosed how it has met those criteria and may be keeping its public powder dry to ensure it satisfies F1 enough to get its break onto the grid.

Hitech has revealed little about its denied F1 application either, although it is known that funding comes from Kazakh billionaire Vladimir Kim, while the LKYSUNZ team claimed that had sourced $1bn in funding and planned to base itself in South East Asia, with facilities across Africa to facilitate educating and bringing through talent through underrepresented areas.

And then there's Rodin. The New Zealand manufacturer had recently gained notoriety in motorsport with its majority purchase of the esteemed Carlin outfit, and is bankrolled by Australian tech billionaire David Dicker. Named after French sculptor Auguste Rodin, it features 'The Thinker' in its logo; Rodin has pensively built up its portfolio with its purchase of the intellectual property of the Lotus T125 (which once appeared on British TV screens in Top Gear) and developed it into the Rodin FZED, and has developed its 1000+ bhp FZERO as a no-limits trackday car.

Dicker's plan was to build Rodin into a fully-fledged F1 outfit with design and manufacturing based in New Zealand and to use Carlin's facilities in the UK as a base for the racing season - much in the same way that Haas uses the Dallara and Ferrari facilities to design and manufacture its cars in Italy, before shipping everything over to its forward base in Banbury to complete the build. There's a few thousand miles extra between Rodin's Mount Lyford base and the UK but, as Dicker points out, "Emirates flies from Christchurch every single day, and they fly six flights from Dubai to the UK every day, so getting parts from New Zealand to the UK is really not an issue at all. People were talking about our being down in New Zealand has made it impossible, but they obviously aren't very familiar with flight schedules."

Dicker revealed that he had previously made an offer for the Williams team back in 2020, prior to the Williams family selling up to Dorilton Capital. He reckoned that, although the terms of the bid that he had put forward would help the family preserve the heritage element, he could not compete with the straight-cash deal that Dorilton had mustered.

"I was seriously involved in the Williams deal," he said. "And I could have bought Williams without a doubt, but I sort of screwed it up because based on what the Williams people had told me, I made them an offer with a certain structure thinking that what they were saying was actually what they wanted, but it turns out that all they wanted was a boatload of money, which I would have been able to do.

David Dicker made a bid for Williams before attempting to bring Rodin into F1 from 2025

Photo by: Carlin

"I just didn't realise that; Williams was basically insolvent and they made a big song and dance about how they loved the old cars and the factory and all the other stuff, so I said to them, 'Well, you keep the factory and you keep the old cars. I'll rent the factory back from you and we'll do a deal on that basis.' But in reality, they just really wanted 140 million euros. So, yeah, that was a bit unfortunate."

Speaking to Autosport about his team's planned entry, Dicker felt that he had all bases covered with regard to the FIA's criteria. In its official release in which it confirmed that it had been unsuccessful with its entry, it unveiled that it was seeking to satisfy the FIA's criteria of a positive societal impact in bringing through F1's first woman driver since Giovanna Amati failed to qualify with Brabham in 1992. This is an area that F1 has put money into with its F1 Academy series, the all-female series that it hopes will eventually support future F1 talent.

Basing the team in New Zealand would also offer opportunities to those based in Oceania who are studying relevant subjects in university and would have to uproot their lives to Europe to find a way into F1. Through Rodin Carlin, it already has a ready-made ladder in which prospective drivers can rise through the ranks from Formula 4 to Formula 2 - something that Andretti has earmarked as a possibility in its own F1 ambitions.

Rodin cited three-time W Series champion Jamie Chadwick, who is now racing in Indy NXT, as a potential candidate for a drive; the company have worked with the British driver previously, and she had been alongside a number of other drivers to test the FZED at Rodin's private test track. According to Dicker, she had stacked up well against the likes of Liam Lawson, who has impressed in his five F1 races with AlphaTauri.

"I honestly believe that we had a good bid and all the talk about if F1 only wants to bring in a team if it's going to bring in sort of something new, well, we actually offered something new: a female driver and geographic diversity" David Dicker

"We honestly thought that the female driver aspect would probably get us across the line if the rhetoric was to be believed. And the fact that it didn't really have any real impact, I find it very disappointing," Dicker explained. "We tested Jamie down here. So it's not like we didn't know anything about her, we tested her in our own car and we've tested Liam Lawson as well - because I've put more money into Liam Lawson's career than Red Bull - and Jamie performed really well, I wouldn't feel that if we had an F1 team we were putting her in the car that we'd be at a disadvantage in terms of the driver, because she's very good and yet she can't even get a run in F2.

"And all this sort of talk, like, you know, Lewis Hamilton and all these other guys [speaking about driver diversity]. It only costs 2 million euros a season to run in F2. And I'm sure he's got a spare 2 million euros, you know what I mean? I might put her into an F2 seat next year, or the year after, because I still think that she's worth putting in the car. I didn't feel that it was really taken very seriously, and all the rhetoric about the female stuff was just garbage. I don't want to be too harsh about it, but I just thought it was really pretty disappointing, to be honest."

Although Dicker was disappointed at the outcome, he felt that the FIA process was "fair" and that Rodin had been able to go through the details of its entry in Switzerland in its presentation to the decision-makers. Owing to Rodin Cars' involvement in the manufacture and design of its own FZERO hypercar and the redesign of the FZED, it already has the majority of machinery needed to base the foundations of an F1 entry around.

Rodin was pushing to field a female driver if its F1 bid came to pass, but was "disappointed" that this aspect wasn't warmly received by the FIA

Photo by: Indy Lights

Rodin's base also has room for expansion within its 550-hectare property, which it could theoretically use to add to its composite laboratory and engine foundry. Dicker has stated that everything would be self-funded, and had spoken to Ferrari about a potential customer powertrain deal. He contends that Rodin could potentially handle powertrains itself, however, but perhaps felt that linking up with an existing manufacturer was a better way in. But, as Andretti is currently finding, its support from General Motors is currently only limited to financial support - and that F1 might be swayed more if the American automotive giant was producing its own power unit.

"I honestly believe that we had a good bid and all the talk about if F1 only wants to bring in a team if it's going to bring in sort of something new, well, we actually offered something new: a female driver and geographic diversity.

"I can fund it myself personally. None of the other guys bidding could do that. They're all bringing in outside money. I can get outside money as well, but they're only relying on outside money. And I thought it was a bit weak, to be honest. Like we even told them that we'd be prepared to develop our own power unit because we've got all the infrastructure to do it. We only went down the Ferrari route because we figured that was probably a better strategy."

"Now that there's a budget cap, there's potentially more hope. My understanding is because they're going in in 2025 and they'll be using the Renault power unit, that's not a great positive" David Dicker

Although Autosport has not been privy to the minutiae of each bid presented to the FIA, Rodin's application appears to be built on far more solid ground than many seen in F1 over previous application processes. Had a similar approach been made during the controversial 2010 process, or the application for 2015-2016 that Haas eventually secured an entry for, then a team would have presented a very serious candidate to consider. However, the entry process for 2025-2026 had been ongoing amid tensions between the FIA and FOM, and under pressure from the existing teams to only consider applicants that would acquiesce to an increased dilution fee - beyond the $200m amount set out in the Concorde Agreement.

The FIA threw its lot in with Andretti, and perhaps felt that FOM would be more likely to accept the bid from the American powerhouse owing to its presence in the US; although F1 has an American team in Haas, it has failed to capture the imagination that a name-bearing title victories in F1 and IndyCar potentially could. Even if GM does not produce its own powertrains for the time being, having the Cadillac brand in F1 is certainly a commercial boon.

It's fair to say that the process has been restricted by the current teams' preciousness over commercial deals. There are teams who have been able to overcome financial oblivion thanks to F1's commercial growth, and thus it's relatively understandable that they would be cautious. But, if a team can build its sphere of influence in a new market, then there is a possibility that everyone can benefit. F1's revenues are increasing and, if it wanted to, it could theoretically grow the prize money pot to ensure that an 11th - or even 12th - team could come in with minimal impact on the others.

If Andretti comes in, Dicker warns that the team would be in for a few teething problems in building up its operations, although felt that the budget cap would help mitigate some of those issues.

Michael Andretti will face teething problems building up the team's operations, thinks Dicker

Photo by: Mark Sutton

"Now that there's a budget cap, there's potentially more hope. My understanding is because they're going in in 2025 and they'll be using the Renault power unit, that's not a great positive. And I think they're going to find it extremely difficult because their operation is going to be based in the UK, And so they're going to be fighting for talent in the UK pool, which is going to be difficult.

"It's going to be very difficult to get good guys down there. I don't know, they might pull a rabbit out of the hat. I mean, they only need a couple of good guys. I mean, if they could persuade Adrian Newey to come across, they'd probably be in good shape! But it's all going to come down to personnel; if they can get some real good operators, then they've got a chance, but I'd say that their chances of doing that are not going to be great.

"And one of the issues they've got is that they don't come from a constructor background. They come from a one-make racing series background, so they haven't got any in-house sort of engineering guys who they've been working with in America for like, you know, 10 years building cars. So they're going to have to build that whole thing up completely from scratch and it's going be very difficult.

"It's not impossible, but you know, not easy certainly. We wouldn't have found it easy to do it either."

Rodin and Dicker can probably count themselves as collateral amid F1's current conservatism as it aims to stretch out its current boom because there's credibility in their entry; if the scepticism between FOM and its teams was reduced and there was the scope to bring in two new entries, Rodin and Andretti would be big pillars to on which to tie Oceanian and North American interests.

As this writer has suggested in a previous column, there are current teams that probably add less to F1 than some of the recent prospects, but retain the bragging rights of already holding entries. And those teams can afford to tread water, as they can survive on minimal investment and charge exorbitant fees to any businesses willing to take on the team in the future.

It's a franchise model now, and some of those franchises are taking up space from prospective entrants who can satisfy the criteria of bringing something new to the championship. And that's a sad state of affairs.

F1's franchise model is stopping new teams bringing something fresh to the series

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images