Craig Pollock is gearing up ‘Formula Equal’ entry in F1 with an idea of 50-50 on male-female ratio across the hiring.
Amid host of potential F1 teams lining up to enter the sport, one more has come to light with the involvement of former owner of BAR outfit. Following his departure, Pollock thought of entering the sport as independent engine supplier.
He started PURE SA but it failed to get investment and had to give up on it. But Pollock now has emerged with another idea of entering F1 with ‘Formula Equal’ programme. The idea is to enter with a team consisting of 50-50 ratio of male and female personnel.
Pollock has applied after the FIA opened up the tender for new entries to enter 2025, 2026 and 2027 seasons, with the Brit eyeing a 2026 entry for his F1 team. There are already bidders like Andretti/Cadillac, Hitech GP and Panthera, who are eyeing a spot but it is all on the governing body to decide.
“Formula One is a little bit like a sieve,” Pollock joked when speaking about his plans to CNN. “You’ve got to be very careful who you talk to … I had to basically admit: yes, it’s correct. We have made an application and that was it.
“Our ambition to deliver and build opportunities and pathways for women to get to the very top level inside motorsports. The concept and the idea was to try and build a Formula One team, 50% male, 50% female, which is extremely hard to do if you have an existing Formula One team; it’s a lot easier with a clean sheet of paper.
“We know that we are going to have to go through our academy systems. We know we’re going to have to build it up because there are not enough women at the moment who are trained up to the level of Formula One and they’ve got to earn a place in there at the same time,” summed up Pollock.
The British businessman is correct in estimating the difficulty in entering F1 especially from the cost side. Even with a $200 million entry fees, it is already a steep amount and the current teams are pushing to increase it under the new Concorde Agreement.
For now, Pollock is already looking at potential investors and backers from Gulf region seems to be high on the list. The recent talk of Saudi Arabia trying to buy F1 from Liberty Media did threw eyeballs of the region wanting more than just being promoters.
Pollock hasn’t revealed who the potential investors are but more or less agreed talking to people from the Gulf region. “We are in intense discussions with I would just say a Gulf area country,” he said. “I’m not really in the position to talk about that and be fully open about it at this present time – that will come out in the very near future.
“And I just hope it’s going to work because … it does take a lot of money. Obviously that is linked to equality, diversity, inclusion, and sustainability. This is not a question of me going to them [the Gulf state]. In reality, it’s them having come to us because we have a turnkey operation with the business plan, with all the costings, with everything ready to go.
“This has to be built from the bottom up in a Gulf state and this is what we are aiming to do. This is a long-term project – this is not short-term,” summed up Pollock, who as he noted wants to have a team based out of the Gulf region and not in Europe or UK.
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