9 mo. ago • 93%

35 years ago today, F1 announced a grid of 21 teams for the 1989 season. Today they announced that having more than 10 teams has no value.

www.racefans.net F1's largest entry, announced 35 years ago today, had twice as many drivers as now

Formula 1 announced its largest field for a new season 35 years ago today. Here's a look at the grid which was twice the size of this year's.

25 comments

F1 wants US $s for their stock

F1 wants US eyes on their races

F1 wants 3 US races

F1 doesn't want a 2nd US team

39
- Tbh I don't count Haas as a US team. They are based in Europe and besides being "Haas" they don't have anything American.
  
  17
  
  All their admin side of things are based in Charlotte in the US.
  
  3
- It's ludicrous.
  
  9
- The teams don't want to share the price pool
  
  6
  
  Great sportsmanship demonstrated by the teams!
  
  2
- They even patented branding for a Chicago GP, so maybe 4 US races in the near future…
  
  1
- It's Europe's nobility's sense of cultural superiority at its peak. Toto Wolff's comments on the matter sealed it shut, as far as I'm concerned. I have to wonder; if a European team wanted to come in as the eleventh outfit on the grid, would their application have been approved?
  
  -1
  
  Bullshit lol, it's dollars and cents pure and simple. No team is joining, american or otherwise.
  
  7
What's the shortest start/finish straight on the calendar? The only real limit to the number of teams in my mind comes purely from how much longer the cars are that at a certain point the grid has to wrap around the final turn. I don't think we're anywhere near that on any of the current tracks, though.

7
- The thing is, in order to gain grade 1 status a track must have capacity for 12 teams
  
  18
  
  who needs that when you can just spin up a street circuit anywhere
  
  12
- Oh we totally had that in Vegas last year.
  
  7
  
  Went to check and sure enough: https://youtu.be/Q6InUqrk9F4?t=20
  
  3
- We used to have pre-qualifying for situations like that
  
  3
  
  F1 is much too expensive for teams to be able to afford to show up and not qualify for a race
  
  6
- Is there any particular reason or regulation why the F1 races couldn't use a running start like other categories? Where everyone departs from the pits at fixed intervals and then the race starts after a 0 lap. Is the grid start from standstill mandatory?
  
  -1
  
  Standing starts are almost as integral to the identity of F1 as open wheels are. Right or wrong, F1 is almost certainly never going to switch to rolling starts.
  
  12
  
  Presumably you'd get less wheel-to-wheel racing, and considering that most recent rule changes have been in pursuit of more of that, it seems unlikely they'd take a course that resulted in less.
  
  7
  
  Rolling starts are lame. I don’t know why you’d want to do that.
  
  6
Ah yes, teams as valuable as FIRST-Judd Racing, true legends of motorsport

5
F1 has lost its way

The teams are too greedy for that sponsorship money so they block competitors

F1 is too expensive. They need to massively LOWER the budget, stop the revenue sharing and double the number of teams.

Also get rid of the stupid hybrid and go back to V8 or V10. Tone down the emphasis on aero and make cars that are raceable without all the aero tricks.

F1 is boring. I only watch old F1, pre hybrid days and nothing else.
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