Todt - F1 too expensive to entice new teams

FIA president Jean Todt does not think any new teams will enter Formula 1 under its current revenue distribution model, despite having vacancies available.

Following the demise of Manor over the winter, only 10 teams are competing in this season's world championship, leaving space for two new teams to enter. F1's new owners, Liberty Media, have highlighted the unequal distribution of revenues as something it would like to address, but such contracts do not expire until the end of 2020.

Todt says the sport is too expensive at present and points to the lack of candidates to fill the vacancies on the grid as proof the current model doesn't work.

"You know I think it's very important we assess the situation of Formula 1 at a technical level and at a sporting level," Todt said. "My opinion, something which I have expressed many times, Formula 1 is the pinnacle of motorsport, is a great show, but costs too much money.

"At the moment we have only 10 teams entering the championship with potentially 12 entries, so clearly we should be able to fill those two missing entries but the only way to fill that is probably by a different distribution of the revenues which is not one FIA problem. It's a problem but we are not involved in dealing with that. We must see how we can afford to make the sport more affordable."

While Todt wants to simplify the technology used in F1, he acknowledges the difficulty in doing so when road manufacturers see the sport as a platform to accelerate development.

"If you take me through a Formula 1 car, I think the cars are too sophisticated, probably too high-technology which is not needed for the sport. It's a very sensitive point because on one side motoring is evolving and it would be very difficult to say the pinnacle of motorsport is not following the evolution of motoring.

"You are talking and saying I am not thinking of having an autonomous car or connected cars in Formula 1 but that's what the world is facing and what manufacturers are facing with electronics on the car and powertrains which are completely different. So we have to see how we can translate that into motorsport, and of course include that in Formula 1."