Ferrari fires warning ahead of Concorde Agreement talks: 'We're not learning from the past'

Frederic Vasseur has warned that Formula 1 is "not learning from the past" with the financial position of teams ahead of talks to agree a new Concorde Agreement.

The current binding document between all 10 teams, FOM and the FIA is set to expire after the 2025 season, with a new Concorde, the ninth, set to come in for the 2026 season.

Topics for discussion are set to include the thorny issue of grid expansion with F1 and the current teams themselves vehemently against allowing an 11th team onto the grid - with Andretti currently locked in commercial discussions after the FIA accepted its bid in October.

Teams are reluctant to allow an 11th squad due to the fact that their slices of the prize pot pie would reduce to only an 11th instead of a tenth, with Andretti arguing it can help grow the overall pot to offset what it costs the other teams.

To protect against this, any new aspiring team must pay a $200 million anti-dilution fee to be split evenly between the teams, although there has been suggestion of raising this threshold to as much as $600 million.

To further muddy the financial waters, teams are also now operating under a cost cap, but the cap has been increased in 2023 to account for global inflation, with Ferrari chief Vasseur concerned about the uncertainty the shifting financial picture is creating.

Vasseur's concerns

"It doesn't matter the format, the organisation and the rules. At the end of the day, if you are 11 teams, you are more exposed than if you are 10," Vasseur explained to media including RacingNews365.

"When you are in a positive situation and the business is going up, I think everybody is positive and optimistic, but I'm not sure that it will stay like this forever.

"We have to really pay attention. On one hand, we are moving to increase the costs at every single meeting. We put inflation [into the cost cap] we change the index for the inflation blah, blah, blah, and we increase the CapEx.

"And now we want to dilute more the incomes.

"It's not easy also to run a business and to do forecasts when you have this kind of change so often and honestly we are not learning from the past and this is a big issue."

Williams boss James Vowles also waded in, with him being particularly against a new team, for the time being, as the team navigate a tough financial situation, with losses in the past couple of years over well over $10 million per year.

"It's not that there's no room for an 11th team, it's just we have to be financially stable to do so," he said.

"I appreciate we're increasing things but we are getting ourselves towards financial stability for the first time in forever, really. Let's get to that point and see where we are.

"So it's not actually against an 11th team whatsoever at all, and I think Concorde should reflect that. Let's grow at a point where we can grow. I'm not sure that's today."