David Richards wrote:"Taking on the challenge of starting a brand new Formula 1 team, finding the necessary funding and developing the car from scratch is a massive undertaking and not to be under estimated.
As expected, we've witnessed the financial and technical challenges that the new teams have faced this year in just getting to the grid, let alone being competitive and whilst I have enormous admiration for their efforts I don't believe this is an appropriate strategy for Prodrive or Aston Martin to adopt."
[I note the comment about Aston Martin there - perhaps the rumours of an Aston Martin F1 team weren't so wide of the mark then?]
Although Richards has not ruled out a future entry into F1, he will only do so if he believes that the team would be competitive and profitable - neither of which would be the case as things stand. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/82877
Although a bit disappointing, it is asking quite a bit to be able to enter the sport and instantly be competitive - the only way that could realistically happen would be for customer cars (and we know that Richards is a supporter of customer cars), or a massive change in the regulations to heavily restrict resources to put all of the teams on the same financial level.
I can't see the former being allowed as long as the midfield teams (and especially Williams) are so against it (and they are right to fear what would happen if the big teams could sell their cars to new teams). As for the latter, the fact that the teams have agreed to reduce their resources will make it easier for new teams to compete on a more level playing field, but money will still be a major stumbling block for a new team for several years to come.
So, that is one potential entrant already out of the running - who is now left?