Jordan team founder Eddie Jordan has said, F1’s new $200 million “anti-dilution” fee would have prevented teams like Jordan from entering the sport.
Under the new Concorde Agreement which has come into force for the 2021 F1 season, new entrants to the championship must pay a fee of $200 million (£145m) which is divided between their existing competitors.
While talking to RaceFans Jordan told, the new anti-dilution fund would have prevented him from being able to enter F1 with his eponymous team 30 years ago.
“I think it’s absolutely fundamentally wrong,” said the 72-year-old, who sold his team to Midland Group in 2005. After so many take overs, The Silverstone-based squad will compete as Aston Martin in 2021 Formula One season.
Over the course of his team’s 15 years in F1, Jordan gave the likes of Michael Schumacher, Rubens Barrichello and Eddie Irvine their grand prix debuts. Jordan believes the anti-dilution fee “makes a cartel out of the teams that are there” and will discourage new entrants from joining the championship.
“I can see that it creates a value on the existing teams, as people will buy a team rather than enter a new one,” he said. “But I’m not in favour of it, because it makes the sport a bit like a franchise and it would have curtailed teams like Jordan entering Formula 1.
“Jordan came through Formula 4, Formula 3 and 3000 and won all the races in those categories to be able to get the superlicence to move forward. This stops all of that, so I’m wholly against it.”
Jordan has recently invested in the sport hospitality and travel management app Guestia, which was tested by the McLaren F1 team last year. He warned that Formula 1’s record-breaking 23-round championship for 2021 will put excessive strain on team’s personnel.
“If they keep 23 races, I think in terms of the crew and the welfare of the staff and everything that 23 is too many. With that many races you need to have a rotation of the staff and I’m not a big fan of that.”
Following F1’s disrupted 2020 championship, Jordan suspects not all 23 races will go ahead this year. “However I don’t believe that we will lose as many races this year as some people may think,” he said, “and we can still get to around the 20 mark this year.”
