Despite talk of various potential newcomers to the sport, FIA president Jean Todt has admitted that F1's governing body has not received a single bid worthy of opening the tender process for an eleventh team.

While Hass entered the sport - a year later than originally planned - in 2016, bringing the grid up to 11 teams again following the loss of Caterham at the end of 2014, Manor's demise saw the field return to just 20 cars again... a far cry from those heady days of the late 80s when the size of the field necessitated pre-qualifying in order to reduce it to the maximum allowed 26 cars.

Asked if the FIA has received any serious offers from potential teams, Todt admitted: "Not something I would describe as a very serious offer.

"When we see there a serious offer, as we did when Haas came to Formula 1, we understood there was some serious interest so we created a tender.

"At the moment, we have ten teams competing in F1," he continued. "We have a good championship. The maximum number of teams we would accept is 12 so I'm happy to listen to any good proposals. We are working to have an even better championship, but the agreements we have is for a maximum for 12 teams."

2010 saw three new teams join the grid, all enticed by the promise of a more level playing field in terms of competition and revenue sharing... a pre-requisite being that they all had to use the Cosworth engine.

HRT struggled for three seasons, never scoring a single point, while Lotus and Virgin, which both went through various name changes were both gone by the end of 2016.

While Caterham (Lotus) never scored a point either, Manor (Marussia) scored 2 at Monaco in 2014 courtesy of the late Jules Bianchi and another last year in Austria with Pascal Wehrlein.

That fact, together with Guenther Steiner's vision for the future, probably encapsulates why serious potential team owners are not forming a queue at the FIA HQ.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by Mugmug, 07/09/2017 12:53

"Call me stupid, out of touch, or,uneducated, but I find the comments by this little ferret comical. To quote him regarding the ridiculous grid penalties, he says "It is not easy to find a solution" Am I missing something here? Why does it take weeks/months of debating and brainstorming when all they have to do is immediately state that all future engine, gearbox, equiptment failures and changes can be done without penalties. there is already a limit on these and if a team exceeds this limit they start from the back depending on their qualy times. What's so difficult about that?"

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2. Posted by Stitch431, 07/09/2017 9:15

"@MUGMUG: I agree. And instead of cooperating with the majority to 1. discard of the halo and 2. to get rid of this ridiculous grid penalty system, where drivers are getting penalties of up to 35 places whith no more than 22 drivers in all, he just refuses to find a solution. Instead he pays his "friends" in Syria a couple of hundred thaousands to get reelected once more."

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3. Posted by Mugmug, 06/09/2017 22:11

"As far as I'm concerned, the little frog is the problem. Stating a problem and not coming up with a solution. The FIA needs a complete overhaul."

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4. Posted by NS Biker, 06/09/2017 19:08

"Would seem that the FIA is scrambling to hold on to the current 10th team (insert idea of who that is) let alone entice new ones to come on board.
Without Honda, there will only be engines for 9 and 3 of them are fighting with their supplier.
Dark days ahead so long as the current (FIA) management is at the helm. Gonna be a bumpy ride."

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5. Posted by GPJohn, 06/09/2017 17:47

"Perhaps this article should read "that The FIA ,has no serious interest for new teams"!!
If they had they would be addressing the problems of costs etc to encourage teams to enter, looking at the experience of Manor ,Caterham and HRT,why would anybody in their right mind want to waste £100,'s millions for nothing?"

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Todt: No serious interest from new teams

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