Two new teams to join Formula One?

Two new teams could be joining the Formula One grid in the near future.

New teams in Formula One are rare, since 2002, only Toyota, Super Aguri, Caterham, Marussia and HRT have entered the sport with only Caterham and Marussia remaining on the grid with both teams going three full seasons without scoring a single world championship point.

The FIA announced in December that they had opened the tendering process for a new team to enter Formula One.

The Formula One paddock shrank to eleven teams after the former Hispania/HRT team dissolved at the end of the 2012 season.

It brought an end to the team after just two seasons and whilst Caterham and Marussia, who also entered F1 in 2011, appear to be doing well at the back end of the grid, they too have had financial issues and have previously held merger talks.

In fact financial problems are not just affecting the teams at the tail end of the grid, Sauber have struggled on and off for a number of years, whilst the Lotus team have also struggled in recent months.

Unfortunately the poor financial state of Formula One has brought the sport to the point where over the winter many in the media were speculating that one or even several teams could have failed to make it through to the start of the new 2014 season.

Thankfully this was not the case and talk about the prospect of three driver teams in the future has been muted since last seasons Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi and Brazil.

So the news of a possible ’12th team’ to enter the sport as early as 2014, can only be seen as good news for the sport and now it seems there could also be a ’13th team’, with Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone announcing in Bahrain that two applications are likely to be accepted.

‘They will be accepted, We’ve also accepted another team as well. Whether they make it or not is another story. We’re happy to have another couple of teams. Ecclestone told Sky Sports.

‘I’ve spoken to Jean Todt about it. We agreed [Saturday], if two teams want to come in, we’ll let them in.’

Whilst one of the applicants is unknown, the other is a big name in American motorsport.

NASCAR team owner Gene Haas declared his interest in joining the Formula One grid in January and Bernie confirmed that their application was one of the two on the table.

Haas has had many years in American motor racing, he co-owned the Indy Car team Newman-Haas which 1992 Formula One World Champion Nigel Mansell won the 1993 title with and alongside Tony Stewart, he now owns a team in USA’s top motor sport series NASCAR.

He’s also affiliated with Guenther Steiner, a former technical director at Red Bull and Jaguar.