The race is set to be dominated by Mercedes, the newly-crowned constructors’
champions, and Red Bull, the beneficiaries of F1’s skewed prize money.
Fernandes added: “The sport has to examine itself as well. Ultimately, we
couldn’t carry on and we would have eventually gone into administration
anyway or closed down the team.”
The shortage of cars has prompted a fierce debate over three-car teams and
customer cars, both of which are hugely disliked by F1’s smallest,
independent outfits.
“There may even be teams within F1 who want a second team – a Red Bull/Toro
Rosso situation,” Fernandes added. “So, we will give it maximum support but
it’s not something I want to get involved in anymore. You have to immerse
yourself in it. Racing’s over for me.”
But the demise of two teams is not putting off F1’s likeliest next entrant,
American Gene Haas. Scheduled for a 2016 start, the 61-year-old bullishly
claims those teams failed due to “mistakes” which his Ferrari-sponsored
outfit would not make.
“They wound up making a lot of mistakes,” Haas said. “Inevitably they didn’t
have the resources or the cars weren’t properly put together because they
rushed things. We would be very proud to be a Ferrari ‘B’ team because that
would certainly teach us how to run in Formula One.”
Haas founded a NASCAR team and is a big player in motor racing in the US.