BYD’s Formula 1 Ambitions Face Major Obstacles As Horner Links Emerge

Record team valuations and the sheer complexity of securing an entry mean any potential path for BYD to join Formula 1 as a 12th team faces a serious uphill battle.
BYD Executive Vice President and CEO for the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East, Stella Li, has never hidden her view that Formula 1 is the perfect stage to elevate the company’s brand image globally.
Three logical paths exist for BYD to secure an F1 entry, including title sponsorship, a full takeover of an existing team, or starting a 12th expansion team from scratch.
A title sponsorship model similar to Gucci, which secured co-naming rights for the Alpine team from 2027, represents the most straightforward option available to the Chinese automotive giant.
Following exploratory talks earlier this year around the Chinese Grand Prix, Li is understood to be attending the Monaco Grand Prix and will meet with F1 executives ahead of the weekend.
Those discussions are described as being in a very early fact-finding stage and far removed from any concrete decisions on what BYD will want to do next.
BYD’s prospective bid has recently been linked with a potential F1 return of Christian Horner, who departed Red Bull and is known to have met with various current and prospective F1 teams and investors.
Horner was photographed with Li at the Cannes Film Festival in what appeared to be a carefully crafted PR opportunity, adding credibility to BYD’s interest while keeping Horner’s name prominent in discussions.
Horner is also involved in a consortium seeking to acquire Otro Capital’s 24% share of Alpine, with his group competing against Mercedes for that stake.
Several investment funds and a major automotive group are known to have approached existing teams with acquisition bids exceeding two billion dollars, only to receive rejections in response.
Nobody is willing to sell even at figures that three or four years ago would have far surpassed the valuation of a top-tier team, with consensus suggesting valuations will climb even higher in coming years.
The idea of creating a 12th team is considered even more complicated than buying an existing one, with F1 having only recently admitted the Cadillac-GM project following a protracted process.
Cramped grand prix paddocks like Monaco or Montreal cannot easily accommodate additional teams, and an even higher anti-dilution fee would need to be agreed upon by all parties involved.
According to insiders in the Montreal paddock, the timing for a 12th team does not seem right yet, even though F1 currently has the governance framework to accommodate up to 12 teams.
Both F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali and FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem are understood to be keen on tapping further into interest from the vast Chinese market, reinforcing that F1 remains very much a seller’s market.
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