F1 Supremo Bernie Ecclestone has revealed that two American teams are hoping to join F1 next season, as the sport enters an ultra low-cost era with the introduction of a £40m budget cap. While the intentions of Peter Windsor's USF1 operation has been known for some months, Ecclestone has revealed that a second American team is looking to join, but will have to battle hard for a place in the pitlane with just three slots up for grabs.

“There's two American teams,” said Ecclestone at the launch of a Formula One credit card in Barcelona. “It will be good to see some new faces. Something like that [a change] is always good. When you think about it, who would have thought we would be talking about Brawn and Red Bull the way we are talking about them now.”

Up to now, a number of operations have signalled their intent on vying for a pitlane slot for 2010, including USF1, ex-F1 team Lola, David Richards' Prodrive/Aston Martin, and GP2 team iSport. A1 Team Ireland boss Mark Gallagher has also hinted at an F1 foray. However, Ecclestone has warned that the three new teams will be chosen carefully, in order to ensure stability for the sport.

Meanwhile, Ecclestone believes that an agreement between the teams and the FIA over the controversial budget cap is imminent. “We're trying to save them [the teams] from stupidity. All we're simply doing is trying to reduce the necessity to spend to be competitive. They can pay the drivers what they want, have bigger motorhomes, but we don't need them to spend money on racing unnecessarily.”

Manipe F1 understands that the Formula One Teams' Association (FOTA) is meeting today in Barcelona to finalise a response to the FIA over the budget cap. While some of the smaller teams such as Williams, Force India, Brawn and Toro Rosso are likely to avail of the budget cap, bigger teams with greater staff numbers would be unable to run under the £40m limit without considerable job losses. The teams are also looking to avoid a two-tier system, with the budget-capped teams being given greater technical freedom. FOTA will be looking for some compromise in the regulations in order to level the playing field for 2010 between capped and non-capped teams.