Haas remains only new team for 2016

“We put these through our comprehensive diligence processes”, said a spokesman.

“Neither of the applications was able to meet the FIA’s criteria for new teams”, said the FIA tonight, “despite being given every opportunity to present their case”.

The FIA opened a new round of selections inviting expressions of interest from possible new teams back in May, and subsequently extended the process by an extra four weeks apparently as a result of receiving approaches by two unspecified organisations needing more time to organise their bid.

“We can confirm that the FIA received two candidate Formula 1 team applications for vacant grid slots,” an FIA spokesperson told Autosport.

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Consequently, the 2016 grid will consist of eleven teams, US outfit Haas joining the ten existing outfits.

The FIA had announced that they were opening up the opportunity to teams to join F1, but this decision ends the chance of any additional entries for the 2016 season.

And the FIA has reportedly assessed the candidate teams on their technical ability and resources, ability to raise and maintain sufficient funding to allow competition in a desired level, overall experience and human resources, and also the value the team may bring to F1.

However, with the deadline having passed and the FIA having evaluated the candidates, the governing body has decided that neither of the two interested parties were deemed suitable enough.