Serbian Stefan F1 team to make it on grid in 2010

The Serbian Stefan Grand Prix team believes that it still holds a realistic chance of lining up on the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix grid next year. Furthermore, the Belgrade-based outfit is confident that, in the event of a presently accepted team dropping out, it will be selected by the FIA.

Currently, 13 teams are set to join the 2010 starting grid with governing body the FIA requesting permission for a 14th entry – the newly-bought Qadbak Sauber team – to bolster the line-up to 28 cars. However, having taken into account the opinion of Bernie Ecclestone that some new teams may not be ready in time, Stefan Grand Prix (SGP) hopes to benefit.

"Everybody from SGP strongly believes that what it has to offer to F1 can be very interesting from every angle," commented team owner Zoran D. Stefanovic, a Serbian entrepreneur who also put in an offer for the Lola team in 1997. With SGP a project of the man who also owns the Serbian Amco company, Stefanovic believes that a Central-Eastern European team is a huge proposition for the sport.

"When you have all the pieces of the puzzle right, when you have one of the biggest shows on the face of the earth – the F1 brand – which, in my opinion is organized almost perfectly, and when you come from an extremely interesting part of the world like Central-Eastern Europe, you have something fresh, something new, something worth looking at," he continued.

"That is the essence of our effort. The idea of an F1 car from Serbia makes everybody start thinking very fast. You must agree that what we have is something never seen before, something far more interesting than you usually expect and something very unique."