A requirement for new entries to pay $200m to join the Formula 1 grid is “obviously not good news”, the co-founder of Panthera Team Asia admits.
Last weekend it was revealed the payment, which is aimed at preventing the dilution of money given to teams by commercial rights holder Liberty Media, was included as part of the new Concorde Agreement, though could be negotiated if the current competitors unanimously agreed.
The fee, which is $55m more than the new budget cap being introduced next year, is clearly a setback for a prospective new entry like Panthera, who have been targeting 2022 to join the grid as the new technical regulations come into effect.
Although, as would-be Panthera team principal and co-founder Benjamin Durand explained, it may simply cause a shift from starting from scratch to buying an existing team.
“All the options are on the table,” he told RaceFans.
“But obviously another team will be valued less than the $200m. Williams, from what I heard, has just been bought for less than $200m and they have all the facilities, all the things like that.
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“Which teams are for sale right now I don’t know,” Durand admitted.
“The worry is that this will make the owners of the team think they can raise tremendously the value of their team artificially when they don’t have this kind of value.”
The Panthera chief went on admitting he isn’t surprised this payment has been created and that, from a certain perspective, it does make sense.
“It’s clearly done to protect the existing teams, which we understand, and it’s a good thing,” he said.
“When we talk to potential backers it shows the series takes good care of the teams once they are inside, which is not always the case in some other series. So it’s a good thing.
“For us, it’s something that was in discussion for quite some time. Obviously it’s not good news, but it’s not news per se, we were kind of expecting it. It makes those things obviously more difficult. It’s easier to find 100m than 300m.”
When considering how to proceed, however, Durand admits a key element will be what Panthera would get in return for paying the $200m.
After all, Haas, who didn’t receive any prize money for its first year in 2016, has only just settled their disagreement over prize money given to Racing Point when Lawrence Stroll bought Force India in 2018.
“What we need also to understand is what the contract part of this is,” he said.
“You have $200m but it’s not just to pay $200m – do they give you also access to the prizemoney in year one? At what level? We need to understand all those kind of things.
“It’s not just ‘there’s $200m, that’s it’, you have also some advantage out of the Concorde Agreement.
“So we need to understand what are those advantages and then to value with our backers whether it’s worth going forward or not with a new team or acquiring a team – that’s if any are on the market.”
