FIA Formula 2 Championship boss Bruno Michel has revealed that all of the current teams have expressed their desire to remain in the series for 2018 and beyond, while also admitting there has been interest from other outfits that are interesting in joining the field.
2018 will mark the first of a three-year cycle with a brand new car, which will be the first new car since 2011, and he feels that the introduction of the new car is the cause of the interest from outside.
“We’ve been approached, number one by all our present teams, and number two by teams coming from other categories,” said Michel to Autosport.
“And by teams who want to create something from scratch. For a new team it’s less risky to come in and be at the same level as everybody else because they have to start to work with a new car.”
The next stage of the process of choosing who will participate from next season is to get background information from the applicants to ensure they have commitment to the three-year-cycle, with sustainable business approaches a necessity.
“[We will be asking for] historical information, sporting information – most of the teams we know already – and also financial information; a business plan,” said Michel.
“Stuff like this to make sure that they can be solid over the next three years.”
Despite interest, Michel does not expect to reach a full grid of 26 cars next season, with the expectation that a there will be either 22 or 24 entrants, although he could be proven incorrect.
“We will be aiming for what the market can support now and we need to be quite careful, because in the past having 26 cars was not a problem, now the market is a little bit more difficult,” said Michel.
“So I don’t think we’ll go with 26 cars, at least for the first year. Now we’ve got 20 cars, probably we’ll go [to] somewhere between those two figures. But I reserve my rights to see what we want to do at the end of the day.”
