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Renault's Cyril Abiteboul has admitted that he is aware of the possibility Force India could become a Mercedes B-team, and has clearly stated that he would be against such a development. Last weekend, Force India entered administration after several parties began proceedings over money owed to them.
It is also understood that there are several parties interested in purchasing the Silverstone-based team. However, it is facing some resistance from Renault, McLaren and Williams who want reassurances before the future of the team is solved.
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According to BBC Sport, the trio wants to make sure that Force India doesn't become a B-team for Mercedes, as Abiteboul states that it would be heavily unfair to the opposition: "That’s not the type of F1 we like," the Frenchman said.
"We are a little bit afraid that such a construction would make it impossible for anyone who is not enjoying the benefit of a master team or slave team to be competitive at their own level.
"We start to see some glimpses of that today in certain aspects of the grid or the development of the chassis or engine. We need to make sure it does not become a necessity, otherwise our model does not work and our involvement can’t be sustainable."
But Mercedes boss Toto Wolff claims that the Silver Arrows are not interested in investing in Force India, as it doesn't like the idea of having a B-team: "We don’t like the concept of B-teams in Formula 1," he said.
"We’d rather not have this structure because it provides advantages to both teams, and competitive advantages, you could argue. We are not buying Force India and we would rather not have the concept of a B-team. I understand there are questions from Cyril and others over what is the future of F1 if big teams buy smaller teams, which I completely respect. I completely share those thoughts and I don’t think it is the right way forward.
"I hope we can find a discussion so the scope of co-operation is narrowed down between teams. There are commercial arrangements that make sense, but there are downsides to it. And that is the competitive order can change.
"So we need to find a solution to how the small teams can benefit from shared infrastructure but at the same time not gain an advantage that is currently possible.
"We have held discussions with every potential buyer to my knowledge and the most important thing is someone with the right funds buys the team. But we are not orchestrating it. It is in the hands of the administrator. It needs to be the best outcome for the creditors of the team and that is to sell for the best financial outcome.”
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Bhurt
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Agreed. I don't much like the way things are going either, but the one positive to take away from it would be that going down this path has given us a very competitive Haas car and a dramatically improving Sauber. So the upside is that potentially we could have a grid with more competition behind... [Read more]