Williams team principal James Vowles says his team is “very strongly against” the addition of an 11th team in Formula 1, while Lewis Hamilton says his support is for future expansion, but not Andretti specifically.
Andretti Cadillac’s application to join the F1 grid was accepted by the FIA at the start of this week, allowing the team to advance to discussions with Formula One Management (FOM) to try and secure approval and a commercial deal. However, FOM has not been welcoming to the idea of an expanded grid, and the majority of teams also oppose the idea due to a potential loss of revenues – something Vowles outlined unequivocally based on the investments Williams is currently making.
“My thoughts are very clear: Williams is against the addition of an 11th team, and very strongly against, but I’ll explain the reasons behind that and why,” Vowles said. “My responsibility is to 900 employees within my company. If you go and look at Companies House, you will see that we’re lossy, we’re very lossy. In fact if you compare from 2021 to 2022, you’ll see the losses were in the tens of millions more.
“Compared to 2023 it’s multiples above that, and the reasons why is we’re investing in this sport to become better. We believe in the way the sport is going and we believe in the direction of travel of the sport.
“In order to do that, and the reason why is we actually have a sustainable entity for once, teams are actually working more and more together, we have close racing as a result of things. But it should be known that this isn’t just us that are not financially stable. I’d say probably half the grid aren’t.
“I’d say the addition of an 11th team is a sensible thin,g but only at the point where the 10th team on the grid is financially stable. I’m fortunate to have owners that believe in what we’re doing and to invest in what we’re doing, but we need to take care as a sport to make sure that we look after that.
“Everyone says we’re in a good place, and we are in some regards, but now those facts down the line actually this is tens of millions – or in fact hundreds of millions, you’ll see shortly – being invested to make the sport better, it becomes therefore clear why we’re very careful about diluting what we’ve already got, because it’s just more losses on the table.
“Now we’ve been clear from the beginning that we’re more than happy to bring in new entities, but the pie has to grow as a result of it not shrink, and so far it’s just shrinking. For clarity on that, that’s not against either Andretti or GM, quite the opposite. I welcome GM with open arms, and Williams welcomes GM with open arms and I hope to forge a relationship with them should things not work out.
“They are an incredible entity that would make the sport better, so it’s not we’re closed-minded to people coming to the sport, but what we’re very careful on is protecting the sport we have right now.”
Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur was another to maintain a stance of opposition, saying he doesn’t understand what Andretti brings that doesn’t already exist in the sport.
Hamilton has clarified his comments from earlier this week to state that he supports the idea of an 11th team, but not specifically Andretti. Mark Sutton/Motorsport Images
“It is not a secret that I’m not a big fan,” Vasseur said. “When we opened the door to an 11th team in the Concorde Agreement last time, it was for good reason, that at this stage Honda said already they will leave F1 and Renault was on the edge which meant we had only Mercedes and Ferrari confirmed for the future. And we opened the door to an 11th team in case they could bring something substantial to F1, and I think this at this stage was mainly the engine.
“As James said, all the teams on the grid made a big effort. We have to keep in mind, three or four years ago we had almost half the grid quite close to bankruptcy and we have to avoid being arrogant. F1 is in a life cycle, we don’t know what could happen before 2030, and I think that we would put F1 in a tough situation (by expanding the grid), except if the new entry is bringing a massive added value to F1.
“I didn’t have access to the dossier of Andretti, but the first question is, what is the added value to F1? We already have a 10th team that is American with Haas, we have an American driver on the grid, the question for me around that is what could be the added value?”
Hamilton had been one of the drivers to back Andretti’s bid on Thursday, but then responded to a post on X (formerly Twitter) to clarify that he was only supportive of a future new team and not the current application in isolation.
“It wasn’t that I support Andretti,” Hamilton said. “I think from a driver’s perspective, it’s exciting to potentially see more cars. And then the idea of an 11th team, we have over 2,000 people in our team, so that’s a huge amount of jobs. We have to make sure that the criteria, which is quite strict, is really respected.
“I feel like we need to amend the criteria, and make sure that there’s an opportunity for real impact, making sure that if there is a new team, they have to be diverse. They have to perhaps create an opportunity for a female driver to come through. And it has to be diverse from the top down.
“At the moment, it’s all white owners, and there’s a real lack of diversity from the top down. It’s all male. And that needs to change. That’s my thought. I really do have 100% faith in Stefano (Domenicali). I’ve known him for a long, long time. I think what he’s doing at the top, there’s no-one that could do a better job than him. I know that he will make the right decision moving forward. He’s a racer and he’s passionate about the growth of the sport. I’m happy to leave it in his capable hands.”
