BYD and Geely want to enter F1, FIA confirms in Madrid: there is a major obstacle.

11/11/2026 14:30

Updated to

11/11/2026 14:30

BYD and Geely have approached the FIA to enter Formula 1, according to the FIA itself. In fact, FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem mentioned the two Chinese automakers in remarks he made at the New Economy Forum in Madrid, as reported by GrandePremio. “One of them was BYD and the other was Geely,” Ben Sulayem confirmed regarding the interested manufacturers.

The FIA and its president are interested in having a Chinese manufacturer in Formula 1. But that doesn’t mean BYD—which could introduce a rival to Smart—Geely, or even both of these Asian giants, will actually enter Formula 1. The main reason is that there is a significant obstacle.

The FIA president accepts BYD and Geely, but the big issue is the engines

Sulayem stated in Madrid that he preferred to see a Chinese manufacturer join as the twelfth F1 team in a possible future expansion of the championship. However, he also explained that BYD or Geely must always submit “a serious proposal” and that the FIA “will not change the existing F1 rules” to accommodate these Chinese manufacturers.

And here lies the major obstacle to BYD or Geely joining F1. For now, it seems the Chinese manufacturer, which has recently surpassed 500 km/h speeds, has more interest, as last April, BYD’s executive vice president, Stella Li, explained that BYD met with F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali in Shanghai and that their potential entry was “something we are discussing.”

However, in July, Li herself added that “the dream [of F1] is always there, but we don’t have a specific plan,” and BYD’s special advisor, Alfredo Altavilla, set a clear condition: “We will never participate in Formula 1 just to put a sticker on the side of a car.”

That means BYD would want to build a new team from scratch. The main obstacle for both BYD and Geely—owner of Lotus, which has won the F1 constructor title seven times—is that both manufacturers excel in electric motor technology... while F1 is trying to maintain internal combustion engines.

F1’s future goes against what BYD and Geely excel at.

Thus, while the current F1 regulations divide the power output of the cars roughly 50% between the electric unit and the combustion engine, FIA agreed last July that, for 2027 and 2028, 60% of this output should come from the thermal unit.

And there’s more: the FIA president himself is pushing for the return of V8 engines with “less electrification” for the next set of regulations, which is expected to arrive around 2030 or 2031. As a result, it seems highly unlikely that we will see a Chinese car on the track at the upcoming GP races in Madrid.