- 2011 season
13th team must pay £16m deposit
The team picked by the FIA to enter F1 in 2011 will have to pay a £16 million deposit, Bernie Ecclestone has revealed.
In a bid to attract new outfits, the sport recently abolished the long-standing requirement of a $48m bond, with the F1 chief executive even offering this year's newcomers a multi-million start-up fund. But according to London's Evening Standard, the last spot on next year's grid will only be filled if a team can prove it is healthily funded.
FIA president Jean Todt's son Nicolas recently withdrew the 2011 application of his GP2 team ART, but others including US group Cypher, Spanish Le Mans team Epsilon Euskadi and possibly the Serbian hopefuls Stefan GP remain interested.
"We have told them that if they can't put £16 million in now we don't want them," Ecclestone said. "If they can't find that now there is no way they are going to run."
He added that he thinks it will take at least "a few years" before more car-makers return to the grid after Toyota, BMW and Honda all left the sport last year.