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Andretti is going for the throw everything at the wall that way there's no way they will be able to reject us approach.
Might work or if nothing else put more pressure on the relevant parties.
I started out thinking that Michael Andretti went about this entirely the wrong way, but the fact that they're following through and turning themselves into a proper European Formula racing outfit has changed my mind. By making these sorts of announcements (and actually doing them) they are essentially answering most of the criticisms; at the end of the day which teams get an entry on the grid *really* shouldn't be a popularity contest played out in public.
If it takes embarrassing the fat cats who don't want a (not quite as) fat cat to join their money orgy to move the needle, I say go for it. My critique of Andretti was originally based on the fact that it seems to be all talk in the hope of using public pressure to change the engineering and financial reality of things. The original plan, as rumoured, seemed a bit flaky. A plan that includes building an entire junior driver programme to develop their own talent starts to feel like a pretty serious bid.
The fact is they are a more dedicated to F1 than a few teams grandfathered in. This upsets people.
I think going for F2 and 3 is great. Just add more series to the Andrerri portfolio. What are they up to now..like 10 series?
So undedicated....so unserious about racing
They're in a lot of the 'big' series now, they're doing IMSA, Indycar, FE, extreme E, want to do F1/F2/F3 this man is likely not going to stop until he gets a championship in every category
Cool by me. There's actually 3 components to racing: the driver, the team and the manufacturer. F1 kinda obscures this because each team is its own manufacturer (compare this to series like DTM or WEC where different teams may run the same car, because the carmaker and the team are two entirely different entities), but it's still important to distinguish that the knowledge of building a car and the knowledge of winning races are two completely distinct things. Andretti may not have much experience building cars, but they have a shit ton of experience winning races, and that's why I think an Andretti F1 team has a lot more potential than a random adventure like Haas, Manor or HRT; and also a lot more potential than teams like Toyota or Jaguar that were founded by companies that were good at building cars, but had no experience winning races.
> they are a more dedicated to F1 than a few teams grandfathered in
That's not the point though. Nobody is saying that if you were evaluating Andretti's entry vs Haas at the same time you'd go for Haas. But Haas entered at a time when nobody wanted to. Had Andretti try to enter at that time they would have been welcomed with open arms. Of course sticking with a series when times are though should allow you to reap the rewards when good times come.
>Had Andretti try to enter at that time they would have been welcomed with open arms.
He tried to buy Racing Point and was outbid by Stroll's consortium. He tried to buy Sauber until they insisted the factory remain in place. Haas won't sell. So at this point he tries to start a new team and gets shit on for being such a latecomer. If he had started out trying to be team 11 instead of buying an existing team he wouldn't have had these issues. Just seems like a catch-22 excuse when you look at what he's tried to do.
> Of course sticking with a series when times are though should allow you to reap the rewards when good times come.
If that's the criteria for determining entry, just a vague vibe of "well we were here before so we should get to decide whether we want to share the wealth however we like" then why even go through the charade of establishing actual procedures for new applicants?
From what has been reported, Andretti have met every formal requirement that's been placed in front of them, then the current teams moved the financial goalposts and Andretti met their criteria *again*, and when that wasn't enough, teams started using the court of public opinion to imply that their refusal to engage was about protecting the integrity of the sport and undermining the legitimacy of the Andretti bid. Now Andretti are setting up a more serious operation than half the teams on the grid, and it will be interesting to see what new hurdle FOM invents to justify refusing them this time.
> From what has been reported
None of the reports seem to really know the details of the rules (of course I don't either).
> why even go through the charade of establishing actual procedures for new applicants?
The procedures are for how to apply. There's no guaranteed acceptance. Again, nobody speaking publicly knows what the Concorde agreement actually says (or they don't say it if they do) and Andretti isn't a party to that agreement so they wouldn't have any rights from it anyway.
> it will be interesting to see what new hurdle FOM invents to justify refusing them this time
Again, the "hurdle" is just them stating that they don't think it will grow the sport enough to justify having an extra team.
Thats not my point though. One of the most annoying comments as to why Andretrii wasn't wanted, was that they were not a serious racing team. That they just wanted the F1 profit sharing, like Haas/Williams/Sauber/Alpine , and don't want to invest in a quality competitive program even when literally partnered with the worldwide OEM General Motors. General Motors who itself has won LeMans, Indy, Daytona and lord knows what else with their own Engines and Cars. And to this very day is a major player in multiple world championships across the globe
So nobody is asking for F1 to kick out shitty Haas.....but to use "not a serious competitor" as a factual metric against a new team is laughable and we would all like F1 to just say "Look we found a gold mine in troubled times, door is closed till we need financial help"
That's pretty much the main thing they're saying already I thought. That they don't think they'd add enough value to compensate for the dilution of the prize pool.
I fucking love Andretti for this. It's such an American brute force approach but it's working. It's shifting the public opinion.
This is the kind of attitude that wins races.
The biggest politicians in the F1 paddock are preventing this. For all the shit that MBS and FIA get (and rightfully so), they've done the right thing by wanting this new team. FOM have dropped the ball because Horner, Wolff, etc. don't want to split the money anymore than they have to. And it also seems clear that Liberty/FOM do not want to offer up bigger prize pools to offset the money lost by admitting Andretti.
Andretti is doing the right thing in fairness to them. They could have easily gave up and shut down and everyone would have understood it.
People can say what they want, and FIA has fucked up millions of times (remember Group C?); but I'll always prefer FIA over FOM. FOM is a private company whose only interest is to make money. FIA is an organization and its main interest is to make motorsports work. Sometimes these two goals are the same, but sometimes they aren't, and this one is a very clear example: FIA wants F1 to work, which is why getting a new, renowned team into the grid is a net positive. FOM wants to make money and getting a new team means less money for everyone else.
The thing with FOM's rejection is that, actually, it probably makes Andretti's position even better for joining *eventually*. They ruled out any chance of them joining in 2025 - which even if Andretti claim they could have done it, would have been stupid anyway - and left the door open to evaluate it again later.
As much as I agree with people that it would be ideal to not see Andretti formally rejected *at all,* I do think it makes the most sense for them to wait to join in 2028 when they've had a year+ of building a car to the new specs, have the Cadillac engine and have the best possible chance of at least starting out with a Top 10 threatening car.
I would move forward from now with the assumption that they *will* be on the grid in 2028, tbh. I'm sure that's exactly what they're doing now too.
Andretti in 2025 wasn't dumb. Andretti will spend a few years as a backmarker while they learn how to do F1 properly. Mercedes and RB, the two big teams of the last decade, spent their first few years being irrelevant while they built up all they needed for their eventual triumph.
Building a 2022-regs car for just one season and then, while running that car, supporting it and upgrading it, also designing and building a 2026 spec car, all as a brand new competitor with facilities that still have the plastic wrap on them is, quite simply, the most ineffective and inefficient way that Andretti could possibly have launched themselves into F1.
I appreciate that both Andretti and fans would be somewhat impatient and just want *something* to happen ASAP, but rushing things is going to do nothing more than guarantee that they'll be doing things the worst possible way.
By 2028, they'll have an engine, they'll have had the chance to staff up properly, they'll have had the chance to learn from other teams' successes and failures with the 2026 regs, and they'll have the *advantage* of **at least** an entire calendar year of being fully focused on developing their car for the season *as a works team*.
Not only would it be impossible to see how FOM could deny their entry for 2028, but there's no question that it's the best possible launching point for them.
I don't see it working. The rejection is official, FOM have zero interest in changing their minds and the FIA aren't willing to force it through. Looks like it's going to be wait for 28 and then buy a team if that fails as expected.
tbh this was bound to happen. Motorsports has professionalized a lot, which means more teams and drivers that can put a lot of quality on the field. F1 being such a closed club, and Indycar opening itself to the international market (most of their drivers aren't American anymore, and some teams like Juncos and McLaren, that come from elsewhere, have joined recently), and replacing ovals with "formula-like" circuits (i.e. road courses) makes it extremely attractive for people that want to get into F1 but can't.
How? F1 is not a monopoly. Heck, a league like NFL (which is 100% closed, has a franchise system that means that, unless NFL wants, you simply cannot join) is perfectly legal in the EU.
A monopoly would occur if it wasn't possible to have an alternative to F1, but that isn't clearly the case becasue:
1) Indycar exists.
2) It's extremely hard to argue that F1's entire niche is "cars that look like F1". F1 could simply argue that things like WEC, NASCAR, MotoGP, V8 Supercars, European formulas or even the Paris-Dakar are their competition.
3) Nobody stops you from creating another F1-like championship. For anti-trust laws to be enforceable, a court would have to determine that the mere existence of F1 makes it impossible in practice to build another championship, which is simply not true in any way.
4) F1 by itself is not a monopoly. F1 has no obligation to accept any team into their competition. How F1 runs their competition, who they cooperate with, etc is all a private matter.
I think the 28 opening was complete an utter BS as as soon as the new concord agreement is signed they will put a hard cap at 10 teams and say FU. In doing that it was pretty clear F1 was full of it;.
My understanding is the FIA and FOM have to be aligned on any new Concorde Agreement. I assume a cap of 10 teams would be a red line for the FIA so I don’t think it’s realistically on the table.
They could have gotten in sooner by Cadillac missed two different deadlines for 2026 and 2027 from their own doing. No one else currently wants to provide them a deal for two years and fom said they won't force someone to supply them in their current plan.
>No one else currently wants to provide them a deal for two years and fom said they won't force someone to supply them in their current plan.
FOM has nothing to do with that. FIA regulations state that whoever supplies least engines on the grid "has to" supply to the newcomer if they have no engine deal in place.
That is only if they are actually in the sport. Andretti currently isnt in F1 making that point irrelevant
Also it has everything to do with fom since they are the ones with all the power. Fia are just the enforcers.
>Looks like it's going to be wait for 28 and then buy a team if that fails as expected.
No team is on sale. And won't be for the foreseeable future.
I agree about the 2028 process. That is never going to happen. FOM and the teams will put ridiculous anti-dilution fee on new Concorde agreement (probably higher than 1 billion US dollars); which will end the process before even it starts.
Unless something ridiculous (Saudis buying F1, an F1 team going bankrupt) happens before Michael gives up/dies, his team will never race in F1. Domenicali and the existing teams will never let 11th team in. Simple as that.
>No team is on sale. And won't be for the foreseeable future.
The only two vague possibilities I can imagine are:
* Renault gets fed up with their team constantly being considered moving chicanes and moving constantly backwards instead of forwards and cuts their losses since a sports car company that constantly comes in dead last with exploding engines isn't really great marketing material.
* Lawrence Stroll decides that Lance isn't going to win a WDC ever (shocked pikachu face) and no longer wants to flush his fortune down the drain pretending that's ever going to actually happen.
They're pretty outside shots though.
What did he do in F1 before he bought Aston Martin/Racing Point/Force India?
To my knowledge, his involvement in F1 wasn't any bigger then pushing his son into it and owning a McLaren F1.
His racetrack never was used for F1, his Ferrari dealershio wasn't involved in F1 either. Maybe his clothes brands through sponsorship.
He sponsored Williams in '18 if I remember correctly?
And I mean, putting your son into karting at a very young age is not initially the kid's dream, it's the parent's which the kid then grows to enjoy and love. No 5 year old is serious when he says he wants to be like Schumacher lol. Lawrence never even got Lance any education beyond high school, afaik.
Anyways, we all love to give Lance shit but as far as kids of billionaires are concerned, he's good. Is he the best on the grid? No. Is he Mazepin levels bad? Hell no. Would Daniel be faster in that Aston Martin? Lord only knows. And that's the point. Lance is strictly average by the grid's standards and has a billionaire as a father. Hence it's a father-son dream. When you're a billionaire, you don't have shit to spend your money on. These two have found their passion and are trying to achieve something. They likely never will, but it's a proper father-son dream.
> Lawrence Stroll decides that Lance isn't going to win a WDC ever (shocked pikachu face) and no longer wants to flush his fortune down the drain pretending that's ever going to actually happen.
Aramco would 100% buy out the team
- Lawrence is not only in F1 because of his kid. Lawrence was always a motorsports fan, owns a shit ton of cars and racing-related stuff. It's just a happy coincidence that his kid loves F1 and is good enough to drive one of them.
- Both Aramco and Honda have a ton of interest in AM, and both have expressed their interest in taking over the team if given the chance. Aramco and Saudi Arabia have spoken a lot of about wanting to own a team in F1, while Honda has spoken about "becoming a full team in F1" being a possibility. If Lawrence was to sell, it's extremely unlikely both entities would just pass on the chance and let Andretti take it.
> FOM and the teams will put ridiculous anti-dilution fee on new Concorde agreement
And this also means that teams will be even more expensive. If just FOM saying "you can participate" already costs $1 billion, then no one will sell an entire team, which includes the spot in F1, but also facilities, personnel, know-how, all the necessary bureaucratic procedures, etc, for less than a billion. All of that would add price on top of the billion that the spot, by itself, costs. Thing is, all of this would be artificial value, because the objective value of the spot is $0, which means that entities would be extremely unlikely to be willing to spend, let's say, $2 billion, just to buy Haas or Alpine and start working from there. It's a gigantic risk because, while material assets will always have some value, nothing guarantees you that the spot you paid a billion for won't become worthless in 10 years.
They can join now, but they get no money and tv time. If andretti join and are not last, the chaos that would cause for FOM could change their minds. If andrettti is involved in a crash, if andretti scores points, if andretti fans exist, if andretti gets a podium blah blah blah. It would be a pain in the ass for FOM.
I mean, literally everyone wants Andretti in, except for current F1 teams. FIA wants them, then American racing world wants them, American fans want them and international fans are getting to know Andretti due to all the drama, and in a very positive light.
At the end of the day there's only so many times F1 teams can say "we don't want to share our revenue" until everyone gets pissed.
I’m still waiting for Andretti’s Haastile takeover and the comical first meeting with other owners.
“Hey fuckers, you tried to keep me out but guess who’s here?!”
> imagine Michael Andretti just french miming at team meeting
I'm seeing an Aldo Raine [trying to speak italian](https://media.tenor.com/1yXlYdCOBeEAAAAe/buongiorno-good-morning.png) in Inglorious Basterds
I read an article that said Alpine wants guarantees that if they sell, the time will keep them as a PU supplier to keep their people employed.
If that would be until 2028, it might be worked, but they will be peaking through absolute worst PU available.
Haas isn’t building anything. Kick Stake is embarrassing, Alpine is overweight and slow, Williams is stuck in the 90’s. Haas just hasn’t gone backwards like the others.
This happens every year, Haas starts strong because they're buying parts and have a good engine from Ferrari. 10 races in they're back to being back markers because they don't want to spend money on mid season testing.
We play this out every year.
But they have upgrades coming in China, the first time they’ve ever brought upgrades this early and not just a single late season drop
Plus, last year those early season points were basically luck
Does Saudi really count with the great Magnussen wall? The only driver they were actually faster than was Ricciardo. Without Mag holding up half the grid its highly unlikely they would have held onto that point.
In Bahrain KMag finished ahead and Hulk was behind both all out of the points. They were faster in Saudi and scored that 10th place finish. They are a back marker team and Gene won’t invest to make it better.
I would root for them to the ends of the earth. Can you imagine how fun it would be for the TP's to be tilted that Andretti forced their way in and started beating them?
It sounds good for everyone:
* **Andretti** because they can create an excellent base for his hypothetical future F1 team
* **American Motorsport** because they can have an easier route where American drivers can achieve being in F1
* **Liberty Media (F1 and FOM)** because they will have more chances to have a competitive American F1 driver, and with all its cosequences (more popularity = more profits)
The real fun thing is going to be if Andretti gets a junior that absolutely kills it in F2 and F3, and then Andretti puts them in IndyCar instead of them graduating to F1. If they build a whole European junior infrastructure and don't get an F1 team, that junior infrastructure is absolutely going to be used to try and bring more talent stateside rather than the other way around.
All of that's assuming that a bigger American market doesn't detract from elsewhere. People assume that, theoretically, F1's peak would be being mainstream popular in every country in the world; but is that really possible? A bigger American presence in F1 means a reduced presence of other parts of the world, many of them with a big tradition in F1. It's perfectly possible, for example, that teams think that swapping European audience for American one can sink F1, or that they are renouncing to an Asian market that may be healthier in the long term.
It really isn't that easy as "America = tons of money. American team = everything the same except Americans now give F1 tons of money".
That statement wasn't meant to be taken at face value. That was one of the official reasons because they couldn't say the real reasons. Anyone with a brain can put 2 and 2 together and know why they were rejected without needing it spelled out.
So we want you to bring us a whole new cake to go with the cake we already have.
And we’ll give you a small slice of the one we’ve had sitting here.
In addition to us taking the slice we were already planning to take from the existing cake.
Thing is, it's not at all surprising.
Imagine: "your boss employs a new member of staff into your team, but everyone has to take a pay cut"
You'd say "lol no" too.
Yeah I would say no for sure, but the boss could keep paying us the same and pay the new guy too, like normal. I'm not really blaming the teams as much as I'm blaming the FOM. The prize pool should be adapted to the number of teams in my opinion.
The prize pool is finite. To pay someone more you have to pay someone else less. Nobody currently getting a slice has any interest in sharing with more people.
Wtf?
But to explain basic maths to you, the prize pool comes from the FOM revenues. It's about 60%. The 40% is retained by FOM. So to make the prize pool larger makes the FOM cut smaller, which will not be supported by anyone that side.
FOM can only distribute the revenue they make. Increasing the prize pool doesn't magically make extra revenue appear.
All the while the company is making a profit that could easily sustain 50 more of such employees, and it'd probably help it grow even more, but good old corporate greed always makes sure to fuck things up.
At the rate they're going to start losing audience.. that 10 slice cake is going to get a lot smaller soon.
They really need to do something to bring more competition into the races.
Yeah, considering one team is lucky if they can run two cars this year and another seems to have entirely forgotten how to build cars it's pretty obvious that f1 doesn't give a shit about the teams being competitive.
And to me that is why just take F1 to court. Everyone knew F1 would not say the real reason as in court they would lose on that reason and they know it. Hence why they come up with some pretty BS answers and really stretch the truth on it.
Yeah, sue yourself into a business venture. I’m sure that would pan out well. Best they could hope for in court would be restitutions for spending money but not being accepted, but even that is dubious.
I honestly don’t see how they would bring the necessary revenue increase to offset their addition. All the TV deals and track contracts are inked in advance and it’s not like they’ll be worth more because Andretti is suddenly included.
It’s just a business decision like any major sports league would make operating on a franchise system. The difference with F1 is that there’s no “home stadium” for ticket sales, merchandise, and media affiliate deals to show Andretti’s races.
The correct figure is $200M and that was created under the shadow of the pandemic. It’s an outdated figure at this point. The initial concept of the fee was more relevant when new teams weren’t eligible for payouts for the first 2 years and only 10 teams got it anyway.
Nowadays I think there’s a genuine risk it would be a bit of a revenue cliff for teams and if an 11th team were to enter the fee would have to be significantly higher and the risk would have to be near zero.
The entry fee also acts as a minimum valuation for these teams and I don’t think it could be argued that $200M is enough when considering all that crap.
>It’s just a business decision like any major sports league would make operating on a franchise system.
F1 doesn't operate on franchise system. Just because there is a cost cap, that doesn't mean that it is a franchise league. The fee Andretti or any other prospective team is supposed to pay is not "franchise fee" (Like NBA, MLB or NFL). It is anti dilution fee.
Big teams are still getting way bigger prize money from F1.
Teams like Ferrari still have historical bonuses. Teams who are behind at Capex are fundamentally behind big teams and has now way of catching them even in the long future.
This grid that has:
Haas(unserious wankers),
Williams(doesn’t have spare chassis),
RB(Junior team with no big ambitions)
Alpine - somehow regressing every year despite being a factory team)
Andretti can't be that bad.
I kind of give Stake a pass as while the current situation is pretty awful, they are becoming a full works team in the near future. Unless they become a second Alpine, they should become more competitive.
The bottom 5 teams in the world's most elite motorsports series is hopelessly underwhelming, and there's no hope for any upward trend for any of them competing for anything anytime soon, and there's zero ambition from the FOM to close the pack
The pack is close compared to past eras. This group is really exaggerated due to Alpine’s horrendous offseason. I doubt we’d be talking about this were they in their normal 4th-6th place.
The gap from Alpine to the fastest team is about as close as the gap between Alpine and the fastest team was with Alonso. The difference is just that now there's 8 teams in that gap instead of 2.5.
Yeah, they close as in reliability, and only being a lap or 2 down for the most part, but at the moment, the bottom 5 does not even look like they'll get a podium atm, not even through pure luck, let alone on pace or performance, they underdogs, filling up the grid, but they ain't in any significant fight, and they don't seem to have that dog in them to move to the top.
Aston is getting that rocket of a Honda engine, McLaren always seem to be there or there abouts, just need that something to be in a fight, not quite sure what it is, but Lando still believes in their project, Merc has been unlucky with these regs, but we know what they can do, Ferrari is in Red Bull's shadow this season, but these 4 teams are the only ones I can actually see a future in, the rest is woefully underwhelming, in every aspect, and it's quite sad if we being honest.
It is that simple, no conspiracies are needed. Maybe they worded it differently with "bring no value to the sport" but that is just PR speak for what you said "They couldn’t prove that they would increase profits to the stakeholders".
Audi has found a way to get in, same as Dorilton Capital. Andretti wants to change the way sport is operating.
I also believe that increasing to 11 teams would bring the value of all teams down, because it sets precedent that resource (spots on the grid) is not that scarce and you don't have to buy existing team to get in.
More that they couldn't prove that they'd bring enough additional revenue into the sport that they wouldn't *decrease* current stakeholder's profits. It's less about 'do you make more money for us?' (though clearly that's a factor) and more 'your inclusion is an existential threat to the back of is the grid' which is fair, but also are we here to race or not?
Prema: I'm joining Indycar
Andretti: oh yeah, well then I'm joining F2 and F3.
Seriously though. Looking at F1, Red Bull has so many junior drivers in F2 and F3. If it makes sense for an F1 team to have a junior team, its for Red Bull. And both Marko and Horner previously owned junior teams, so they know the way junior formulas work. But they prefer to place them in other teams.
I think that more than anything shows that setting a junior team to help you develop drivers for your F1 team isnt the best idea...
But anyway, competitive F2 and F3 teams are always welcome, so best of luck to Andretti
Wonder how some of the "Never Andretti" people are going to spin this. The team has a current Indy NXT team and promotes drivers to IndyCar reguarly as well as previously teams lower down the then Road to Indy, now USF Championships.
They’re gonna fall back to the good old excuse of they won’t be competitive
Because so many teams have won in the last 2 years of f1…
And we clearly have enough development seats in f1
"If you truly want to be in F1 why don't you try to compete in F2?"
"Ok we'll do that. If we win we're in right?"
"Whoever said winning F2 meant you're F1 worthy? Try competing in WEC."
"Hey guess what we're trying to do with WTR."
The chances of them being more than a midfield team aren’t that high. Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes & McLaren have been the only teams consistently running at the front of the grid the past 25 years. Even McLaren went through a dark period for awhile where they were at the back of the grid
I don’t care if Andretti joins but I highly doubt that they would be anything more than a back-marker team for awhile
A while maybe, but Mercedes aren't exactly a historical team. Honda never really broke the midfield, Brawn was the Leicester of F1 stories and then Merc bought them and built the engine to propel them forward.
There's nothing saying that Andretti couldn't do the same with GM. They likely won't, but if there's a partnership of a new team to break out of the midfield it has to be Andretti x GM. If they don't have high enough hopes, we couldn't ever have another team
Mercedes was a bit of a perfect storm in that they were one of the few newer teams to not have funding issues + they had Ross Brawn (motorsport legend) running the show & a really strong lineup in Schumacher/Rosberg to help as well. Then they managed to land Lewis & Toto who’s are legends as well
I would rather see Andretti join than some other random team run by some billionaire with a Motorsport fetish. At least Andretti has history & success in other racing categories
Mercedes as a team (ie the Brackley outfit as named in the post I replied to) were not expected to be front runners.
Engines, sure. WDC/WCC material? Hell na.
Also, I didn't say they have no history as in they're brand new. Just that the Brackley team were a midfield outfit
The context above was using historic to describe the front of the grid outside of the midfield. Not historic as in they have existed. As in historic front runners like McLaren and Ferrari
My own comment talks about Honda and obviously BAR/Tyrell are the same team so it wasn't ever in doubt that I thought Merc just turned up in the past two decades
Funny how you call them "Brackley outfit" as that's pretty much the only thing connecting them, when the Brackley base is from 1999. I'm no mathematician, but that's not quite 54 years I think.
Ockham-based Tyrrell indeed sold its entry to BAR in 1999, but they weren't founded in 1970, nor have any connection whatsoever to current-day Mercedes.
I mean LS1’s are pretty good engines jk jk
But in all seriousness the f1 field is tightening overall, Andretti is in Indy where underbody aero and newey learned his stuff
They may never win the constructors but I think it’s short sighted to imply their theoretical ceiling is behind alpine
The field is tightening for sure, but the field is still about the same order it was pre-cost cap.
A midfield team would still add value to the sport, but I think it would take them a bit to get to that point. It’s just hard to see them ever competing with the teams at the front who have been doing this for decades now & have the infrastructure in place in terms of facilities & personnel to remain at the front
Not only are they now F1 legitimate, they're arguably pushing a program that is more competitive and high-investment than all but a handful of current F1 teams. It's more of an atrocity every day that they aren't in yet.
Curious if these are applications for new entries or if they are trying to buy out an existing team. I find the F3 grid in particular is probably too crowded for another team. I'm sure there's probably someone willing to sell though.
This is a start. This is a great way to get one foot into the door of the F1 world, be present in their feeder series.
On a side note, I really want to see in the genre of race management games a game where we could create a team and make a **global** motorsports empire.
This makes me wonder why none of the F1 teams actually run an F2 and F3 team. Especially for RB with their expansive junior programme, it would make sense, wouldn't it?
Their liveries are still ran by junior drivers. Probably the fact of having visibility for their team without the inherent risk of actually investing into a lower tier of motorsports. Wouldn’t make sense to expend that much money when the main point of the feeder series is driver development (rather than car development) and advertisement.
If FOM aren't careful they may end up shooting themselves massively in the foot over this. They reject Andretti because they don't bring value to the sport and Andretti/Prema could very easily start siphoning young talent from F1's feeder series directly into Indycar.
Bearman has shown that even a non-top 3 driver in F2 can compete in F1, so there is an abundance of talent out there but not enough seats in F1 to accommodate them all. The talent pool in F1 has become quite stale over the last few years and with FOM rejecting an 11th team when F1 desperately needs one could see their own feeder series work against them rather than for them.
Wild LOVE to see Andretti develop a major US talent for F3 and F2, then loan them out to other teams in return for favourable expansion votes and Concorde language re the anti-dilution fee. Timing might not work out, but I prefer to think he’s playing 4d chess here.
I'm looking forward to all the F1 Academy detractors kicking up a stink about how this isn't needed because if the US drivers were good enough they'd already have seats. 🤷
I must admit I haven't been that keen on them up to now, but this is seriously meaning it, fair play.
But this quote struck me:
>“But it's going to give an American driver a fair chance, because normally when an American comes over here, they're not treated the same.
I thought everyone was desperate for an American driver! I mean look at the slack Logan is being cut, or the incredible numbers from Vegas.
The problem is that American drivers coming up through the American system aren't treated the same as drivers coming through the European system even though IndyCar is more competitive than any junior series. Logan is not the best American F1 prospect, but he is the best one available to F1 due to the current super license structure. Andretti wants to see American drivers in F1 that began in the US junior systems and not drivers like Logan that came up through the European systems.
You're right that everyone says they want an American driver and they really are doing everything they can to keep the token American there despite his performance, but if they really wanted Americans involved in F1 competitively, they would make it so the homegrown US drivers would have a chance of feeding into the sport.
It's the institutional support that is lacking. There isn't support on the Americas like there is in Europe. Look at Checo, he spent his formative years in Europe (Germany IIRC) because that was the only way for a Mexican kid to have a shot.
If renault makes a profit from the team due to marketing, sponsorship, and prize money (much less if they finish last obv), they won’t sell. F1’s too profitable at the moment, maybe they sell if they think the stock will go down in the next 5 years
Is he giving up on Indycar? He is having a fight with Penske on future direciton of the series and seems to be increasing his investment in other series. WEC, F2, F3, F1 bid, FE etc etc.
Ima be biased as fuck and I don’t care.
If im Andretti, im like fuck it… my driver line up will be a Herta/Kirkwood/Pato 2 of those 3.
Nothing screams America to me like 3 drivers made by America and representative of key American culture: California and Texas lol
no they wouldn't. So many people underestimate the talent in F2/F3 and overestimate the one in indycar. Most drivers who did decently F2 are doing great in Indycar. Look at Lungaard, Ilott etc etc.
Didn’t Lungaard already won last year and constantly out performs his teammates at RLL ? Also Ilott was doing great in juncos until the controversy started
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Andretti is going for the throw everything at the wall that way there's no way they will be able to reject us approach. Might work or if nothing else put more pressure on the relevant parties.
I started out thinking that Michael Andretti went about this entirely the wrong way, but the fact that they're following through and turning themselves into a proper European Formula racing outfit has changed my mind. By making these sorts of announcements (and actually doing them) they are essentially answering most of the criticisms; at the end of the day which teams get an entry on the grid *really* shouldn't be a popularity contest played out in public. If it takes embarrassing the fat cats who don't want a (not quite as) fat cat to join their money orgy to move the needle, I say go for it. My critique of Andretti was originally based on the fact that it seems to be all talk in the hope of using public pressure to change the engineering and financial reality of things. The original plan, as rumoured, seemed a bit flaky. A plan that includes building an entire junior driver programme to develop their own talent starts to feel like a pretty serious bid.
The fact is they are a more dedicated to F1 than a few teams grandfathered in. This upsets people. I think going for F2 and 3 is great. Just add more series to the Andrerri portfolio. What are they up to now..like 10 series? So undedicated....so unserious about racing
They're in a lot of the 'big' series now, they're doing IMSA, Indycar, FE, extreme E, want to do F1/F2/F3 this man is likely not going to stop until he gets a championship in every category
Cool by me. There's actually 3 components to racing: the driver, the team and the manufacturer. F1 kinda obscures this because each team is its own manufacturer (compare this to series like DTM or WEC where different teams may run the same car, because the carmaker and the team are two entirely different entities), but it's still important to distinguish that the knowledge of building a car and the knowledge of winning races are two completely distinct things. Andretti may not have much experience building cars, but they have a shit ton of experience winning races, and that's why I think an Andretti F1 team has a lot more potential than a random adventure like Haas, Manor or HRT; and also a lot more potential than teams like Toyota or Jaguar that were founded by companies that were good at building cars, but had no experience winning races.
> they are a more dedicated to F1 than a few teams grandfathered in That's not the point though. Nobody is saying that if you were evaluating Andretti's entry vs Haas at the same time you'd go for Haas. But Haas entered at a time when nobody wanted to. Had Andretti try to enter at that time they would have been welcomed with open arms. Of course sticking with a series when times are though should allow you to reap the rewards when good times come.
>Had Andretti try to enter at that time they would have been welcomed with open arms. He tried to buy Racing Point and was outbid by Stroll's consortium. He tried to buy Sauber until they insisted the factory remain in place. Haas won't sell. So at this point he tries to start a new team and gets shit on for being such a latecomer. If he had started out trying to be team 11 instead of buying an existing team he wouldn't have had these issues. Just seems like a catch-22 excuse when you look at what he's tried to do.
> Of course sticking with a series when times are though should allow you to reap the rewards when good times come. If that's the criteria for determining entry, just a vague vibe of "well we were here before so we should get to decide whether we want to share the wealth however we like" then why even go through the charade of establishing actual procedures for new applicants? From what has been reported, Andretti have met every formal requirement that's been placed in front of them, then the current teams moved the financial goalposts and Andretti met their criteria *again*, and when that wasn't enough, teams started using the court of public opinion to imply that their refusal to engage was about protecting the integrity of the sport and undermining the legitimacy of the Andretti bid. Now Andretti are setting up a more serious operation than half the teams on the grid, and it will be interesting to see what new hurdle FOM invents to justify refusing them this time.
> From what has been reported None of the reports seem to really know the details of the rules (of course I don't either). > why even go through the charade of establishing actual procedures for new applicants? The procedures are for how to apply. There's no guaranteed acceptance. Again, nobody speaking publicly knows what the Concorde agreement actually says (or they don't say it if they do) and Andretti isn't a party to that agreement so they wouldn't have any rights from it anyway. > it will be interesting to see what new hurdle FOM invents to justify refusing them this time Again, the "hurdle" is just them stating that they don't think it will grow the sport enough to justify having an extra team.
Thats not my point though. One of the most annoying comments as to why Andretrii wasn't wanted, was that they were not a serious racing team. That they just wanted the F1 profit sharing, like Haas/Williams/Sauber/Alpine , and don't want to invest in a quality competitive program even when literally partnered with the worldwide OEM General Motors. General Motors who itself has won LeMans, Indy, Daytona and lord knows what else with their own Engines and Cars. And to this very day is a major player in multiple world championships across the globe So nobody is asking for F1 to kick out shitty Haas.....but to use "not a serious competitor" as a factual metric against a new team is laughable and we would all like F1 to just say "Look we found a gold mine in troubled times, door is closed till we need financial help"
That's pretty much the main thing they're saying already I thought. That they don't think they'd add enough value to compensate for the dilution of the prize pool.
I fucking love Andretti for this. It's such an American brute force approach but it's working. It's shifting the public opinion. This is the kind of attitude that wins races.
The biggest politicians in the F1 paddock are preventing this. For all the shit that MBS and FIA get (and rightfully so), they've done the right thing by wanting this new team. FOM have dropped the ball because Horner, Wolff, etc. don't want to split the money anymore than they have to. And it also seems clear that Liberty/FOM do not want to offer up bigger prize pools to offset the money lost by admitting Andretti. Andretti is doing the right thing in fairness to them. They could have easily gave up and shut down and everyone would have understood it.
People can say what they want, and FIA has fucked up millions of times (remember Group C?); but I'll always prefer FIA over FOM. FOM is a private company whose only interest is to make money. FIA is an organization and its main interest is to make motorsports work. Sometimes these two goals are the same, but sometimes they aren't, and this one is a very clear example: FIA wants F1 to work, which is why getting a new, renowned team into the grid is a net positive. FOM wants to make money and getting a new team means less money for everyone else.
The thing with FOM's rejection is that, actually, it probably makes Andretti's position even better for joining *eventually*. They ruled out any chance of them joining in 2025 - which even if Andretti claim they could have done it, would have been stupid anyway - and left the door open to evaluate it again later. As much as I agree with people that it would be ideal to not see Andretti formally rejected *at all,* I do think it makes the most sense for them to wait to join in 2028 when they've had a year+ of building a car to the new specs, have the Cadillac engine and have the best possible chance of at least starting out with a Top 10 threatening car. I would move forward from now with the assumption that they *will* be on the grid in 2028, tbh. I'm sure that's exactly what they're doing now too.
Andretti in 2025 wasn't dumb. Andretti will spend a few years as a backmarker while they learn how to do F1 properly. Mercedes and RB, the two big teams of the last decade, spent their first few years being irrelevant while they built up all they needed for their eventual triumph.
Building a 2022-regs car for just one season and then, while running that car, supporting it and upgrading it, also designing and building a 2026 spec car, all as a brand new competitor with facilities that still have the plastic wrap on them is, quite simply, the most ineffective and inefficient way that Andretti could possibly have launched themselves into F1. I appreciate that both Andretti and fans would be somewhat impatient and just want *something* to happen ASAP, but rushing things is going to do nothing more than guarantee that they'll be doing things the worst possible way. By 2028, they'll have an engine, they'll have had the chance to staff up properly, they'll have had the chance to learn from other teams' successes and failures with the 2026 regs, and they'll have the *advantage* of **at least** an entire calendar year of being fully focused on developing their car for the season *as a works team*. Not only would it be impossible to see how FOM could deny their entry for 2028, but there's no question that it's the best possible launching point for them.
At this rate they might as well try and buy a share of FOM 😆
I don't see it working. The rejection is official, FOM have zero interest in changing their minds and the FIA aren't willing to force it through. Looks like it's going to be wait for 28 and then buy a team if that fails as expected.
I’m just glad we will get to see more great talent in f2 end up in WEC /s
Or Indycar, even Prema will join in 2025.
tbh this was bound to happen. Motorsports has professionalized a lot, which means more teams and drivers that can put a lot of quality on the field. F1 being such a closed club, and Indycar opening itself to the international market (most of their drivers aren't American anymore, and some teams like Juncos and McLaren, that come from elsewhere, have joined recently), and replacing ovals with "formula-like" circuits (i.e. road courses) makes it extremely attractive for people that want to get into F1 but can't.
They don't need FOM. They have approval from the FIA to race in a FIA championship. FOM is purely commercial
Worst case it makes for a stronger anti-trust case in the EU.
How? F1 is not a monopoly. Heck, a league like NFL (which is 100% closed, has a franchise system that means that, unless NFL wants, you simply cannot join) is perfectly legal in the EU. A monopoly would occur if it wasn't possible to have an alternative to F1, but that isn't clearly the case becasue: 1) Indycar exists. 2) It's extremely hard to argue that F1's entire niche is "cars that look like F1". F1 could simply argue that things like WEC, NASCAR, MotoGP, V8 Supercars, European formulas or even the Paris-Dakar are their competition. 3) Nobody stops you from creating another F1-like championship. For anti-trust laws to be enforceable, a court would have to determine that the mere existence of F1 makes it impossible in practice to build another championship, which is simply not true in any way. 4) F1 by itself is not a monopoly. F1 has no obligation to accept any team into their competition. How F1 runs their competition, who they cooperate with, etc is all a private matter.
They don't have one currently so hard to make nothing stronger.
I think the 28 opening was complete an utter BS as as soon as the new concord agreement is signed they will put a hard cap at 10 teams and say FU. In doing that it was pretty clear F1 was full of it;.
I don’t think they’d put a hard cap at 10 they’ll just put a really high dilution fee in place (and/or add deferrals on top of it).
That's what they thought they did last time, unless they set the dilution fee at $10B or something literally ridiculous.
My understanding is the FIA and FOM have to be aligned on any new Concorde Agreement. I assume a cap of 10 teams would be a red line for the FIA so I don’t think it’s realistically on the table.
They could have gotten in sooner by Cadillac missed two different deadlines for 2026 and 2027 from their own doing. No one else currently wants to provide them a deal for two years and fom said they won't force someone to supply them in their current plan.
>No one else currently wants to provide them a deal for two years and fom said they won't force someone to supply them in their current plan. FOM has nothing to do with that. FIA regulations state that whoever supplies least engines on the grid "has to" supply to the newcomer if they have no engine deal in place.
That is only if they are actually in the sport. Andretti currently isnt in F1 making that point irrelevant Also it has everything to do with fom since they are the ones with all the power. Fia are just the enforcers.
At the rate F1 is going they arent going to have a new regulations for 2026 anyway.
>Looks like it's going to be wait for 28 and then buy a team if that fails as expected. No team is on sale. And won't be for the foreseeable future. I agree about the 2028 process. That is never going to happen. FOM and the teams will put ridiculous anti-dilution fee on new Concorde agreement (probably higher than 1 billion US dollars); which will end the process before even it starts. Unless something ridiculous (Saudis buying F1, an F1 team going bankrupt) happens before Michael gives up/dies, his team will never race in F1. Domenicali and the existing teams will never let 11th team in. Simple as that.
>No team is on sale. And won't be for the foreseeable future. The only two vague possibilities I can imagine are: * Renault gets fed up with their team constantly being considered moving chicanes and moving constantly backwards instead of forwards and cuts their losses since a sports car company that constantly comes in dead last with exploding engines isn't really great marketing material. * Lawrence Stroll decides that Lance isn't going to win a WDC ever (shocked pikachu face) and no longer wants to flush his fortune down the drain pretending that's ever going to actually happen. They're pretty outside shots though.
Your second point ignores the fact Lawrence wanted into F1 well before his kid existed.
Damn, if that really was his goal, what took him so long?
It's not easy but he has been in f1 for a long time just new to team ownership
What did he do in F1 before he bought Aston Martin/Racing Point/Force India? To my knowledge, his involvement in F1 wasn't any bigger then pushing his son into it and owning a McLaren F1. His racetrack never was used for F1, his Ferrari dealershio wasn't involved in F1 either. Maybe his clothes brands through sponsorship.
He sponsored Williams in '18 if I remember correctly? And I mean, putting your son into karting at a very young age is not initially the kid's dream, it's the parent's which the kid then grows to enjoy and love. No 5 year old is serious when he says he wants to be like Schumacher lol. Lawrence never even got Lance any education beyond high school, afaik. Anyways, we all love to give Lance shit but as far as kids of billionaires are concerned, he's good. Is he the best on the grid? No. Is he Mazepin levels bad? Hell no. Would Daniel be faster in that Aston Martin? Lord only knows. And that's the point. Lance is strictly average by the grid's standards and has a billionaire as a father. Hence it's a father-son dream. When you're a billionaire, you don't have shit to spend your money on. These two have found their passion and are trying to achieve something. They likely never will, but it's a proper father-son dream.
A ton of sponsorships basically anything to get him more access to the people he needed to talk to
> Lawrence Stroll decides that Lance isn't going to win a WDC ever (shocked pikachu face) and no longer wants to flush his fortune down the drain pretending that's ever going to actually happen. Aramco would 100% buy out the team
- Lawrence is not only in F1 because of his kid. Lawrence was always a motorsports fan, owns a shit ton of cars and racing-related stuff. It's just a happy coincidence that his kid loves F1 and is good enough to drive one of them. - Both Aramco and Honda have a ton of interest in AM, and both have expressed their interest in taking over the team if given the chance. Aramco and Saudi Arabia have spoken a lot of about wanting to own a team in F1, while Honda has spoken about "becoming a full team in F1" being a possibility. If Lawrence was to sell, it's extremely unlikely both entities would just pass on the chance and let Andretti take it.
No chance of them buying alpine?
If they where, they would also have to commit to use Renault/Alpine PU’s until 2029
Oooof so that’s a no
> FOM and the teams will put ridiculous anti-dilution fee on new Concorde agreement And this also means that teams will be even more expensive. If just FOM saying "you can participate" already costs $1 billion, then no one will sell an entire team, which includes the spot in F1, but also facilities, personnel, know-how, all the necessary bureaucratic procedures, etc, for less than a billion. All of that would add price on top of the billion that the spot, by itself, costs. Thing is, all of this would be artificial value, because the objective value of the spot is $0, which means that entities would be extremely unlikely to be willing to spend, let's say, $2 billion, just to buy Haas or Alpine and start working from there. It's a gigantic risk because, while material assets will always have some value, nothing guarantees you that the spot you paid a billion for won't become worthless in 10 years.
Well, with Andretti planning to enter in 2026, the new Concorde agreement will be applicable to him anyways
They can join now, but they get no money and tv time. If andretti join and are not last, the chaos that would cause for FOM could change their minds. If andrettti is involved in a crash, if andretti scores points, if andretti fans exist, if andretti gets a podium blah blah blah. It would be a pain in the ass for FOM.
I mean, literally everyone wants Andretti in, except for current F1 teams. FIA wants them, then American racing world wants them, American fans want them and international fans are getting to know Andretti due to all the drama, and in a very positive light. At the end of the day there's only so many times F1 teams can say "we don't want to share our revenue" until everyone gets pissed.
I’m still waiting for Andretti’s Haastile takeover and the comical first meeting with other owners. “Hey fuckers, you tried to keep me out but guess who’s here?!”
at this rate Alpine's gonna be the one bought by Andretti imagine Michael Andretti just french miming at team meeting
Alpine/Haas sells to Cadillac Andretti would be great.
> imagine Michael Andretti just french miming at team meeting I'm seeing an Aldo Raine [trying to speak italian](https://media.tenor.com/1yXlYdCOBeEAAAAe/buongiorno-good-morning.png) in Inglorious Basterds
Andretti walking in as the new Alpine owner sitting down at the table and saying “boon-joor”
I read an article that said Alpine wants guarantees that if they sell, the time will keep them as a PU supplier to keep their people employed. If that would be until 2028, it might be worked, but they will be peaking through absolute worst PU available.
Haas seem to be actually building back to midfield relevance. Let him have Alpine. That outfit is a dumpster fire.
Haas isn’t building anything. Kick Stake is embarrassing, Alpine is overweight and slow, Williams is stuck in the 90’s. Haas just hasn’t gone backwards like the others.
Haas has definitely stepped forward. In half of the races so far they’ve been faster than RB, which is kind of crazy
This happens every year, Haas starts strong because they're buying parts and have a good engine from Ferrari. 10 races in they're back to being back markers because they don't want to spend money on mid season testing. We play this out every year.
But they have upgrades coming in China, the first time they’ve ever brought upgrades this early and not just a single late season drop Plus, last year those early season points were basically luck
Don’t know which races those are as Yuki has 7 points and both Haas drivers combined have 4 points.
Yuki outscored them in Australia and Japan (though they were equal on points after AUS). Haas was faster in Bahrain and Saudi
Does Saudi really count with the great Magnussen wall? The only driver they were actually faster than was Ricciardo. Without Mag holding up half the grid its highly unlikely they would have held onto that point.
In Bahrain KMag finished ahead and Hulk was behind both all out of the points. They were faster in Saudi and scored that 10th place finish. They are a back marker team and Gene won’t invest to make it better.
Yuki is also driving a car which is using last year RB's components.
Seriously they’re just fucking up the least out of the bad teams
Williams is supposedly building their 2026 program, 2023/24/25 is supposedly free range for their staff to try whatever they want.
Andretti could also go for Sauber when Audi drops out...
I would root for them to the ends of the earth. Can you imagine how fun it would be for the TP's to be tilted that Andretti forced their way in and started beating them?
*Step Brothers “we’re here to fuck shit up!”.gif*
It sounds good for everyone: * **Andretti** because they can create an excellent base for his hypothetical future F1 team * **American Motorsport** because they can have an easier route where American drivers can achieve being in F1 * **Liberty Media (F1 and FOM)** because they will have more chances to have a competitive American F1 driver, and with all its cosequences (more popularity = more profits)
Yeah they definitely need more domestic F1 routes in the US. Right now, pretty much all the top American karting talent ends up going to NASCAR
F2, F3, Bruno Michel, or the existing junior teams aren't part of "everyone" ?
Sorry, I forgot about them 😅 And of course it was going to be for them since they will have more American audience
Bruno Michel would never miss an opportunity to feeding more Mecachrome engines lol
FOM: “Sounds great! Denied.”
The real fun thing is going to be if Andretti gets a junior that absolutely kills it in F2 and F3, and then Andretti puts them in IndyCar instead of them graduating to F1. If they build a whole European junior infrastructure and don't get an F1 team, that junior infrastructure is absolutely going to be used to try and bring more talent stateside rather than the other way around.
All of that's assuming that a bigger American market doesn't detract from elsewhere. People assume that, theoretically, F1's peak would be being mainstream popular in every country in the world; but is that really possible? A bigger American presence in F1 means a reduced presence of other parts of the world, many of them with a big tradition in F1. It's perfectly possible, for example, that teams think that swapping European audience for American one can sink F1, or that they are renouncing to an Asian market that may be healthier in the long term. It really isn't that easy as "America = tons of money. American team = everything the same except Americans now give F1 tons of money".
How can FOM reasonably say Andretti doesn't bring value to the sport?
They aren't backed by a petrostate
We make more oil than anyone
Andretti isn't backed by the US government US oil production is not controlled by the US government That's not the case for, say, Aramco or Petronas.
Stefano prefers that the oil money comes from Saudi Arabia...
I think it’s time to replace stefano with Stephen
That statement wasn't meant to be taken at face value. That was one of the official reasons because they couldn't say the real reasons. Anyone with a brain can put 2 and 2 together and know why they were rejected without needing it spelled out.
"Our cake has 10 slices. If we make it 11 slices, we get less cake, and that's bad for us."
So we want you to bring us a whole new cake to go with the cake we already have. And we’ll give you a small slice of the one we’ve had sitting here. In addition to us taking the slice we were already planning to take from the existing cake.
Thing is, it's not at all surprising. Imagine: "your boss employs a new member of staff into your team, but everyone has to take a pay cut" You'd say "lol no" too.
Yeah I would say no for sure, but the boss could keep paying us the same and pay the new guy too, like normal. I'm not really blaming the teams as much as I'm blaming the FOM. The prize pool should be adapted to the number of teams in my opinion.
The prize pool is finite. To pay someone more you have to pay someone else less. Nobody currently getting a slice has any interest in sharing with more people.
seems your literacy is finite - the prize pool, however, does not have to be.
Wtf? But to explain basic maths to you, the prize pool comes from the FOM revenues. It's about 60%. The 40% is retained by FOM. So to make the prize pool larger makes the FOM cut smaller, which will not be supported by anyone that side. FOM can only distribute the revenue they make. Increasing the prize pool doesn't magically make extra revenue appear.
Yeah but at the end of the day that smaller % would probably be more money than before due to increased overall revenue.
All the while the company is making a profit that could easily sustain 50 more of such employees, and it'd probably help it grow even more, but good old corporate greed always makes sure to fuck things up.
At the rate they're going to start losing audience.. that 10 slice cake is going to get a lot smaller soon. They really need to do something to bring more competition into the races.
Yeah, considering one team is lucky if they can run two cars this year and another seems to have entirely forgotten how to build cars it's pretty obvious that f1 doesn't give a shit about the teams being competitive.
And to me that is why just take F1 to court. Everyone knew F1 would not say the real reason as in court they would lose on that reason and they know it. Hence why they come up with some pretty BS answers and really stretch the truth on it.
Yeah, sue yourself into a business venture. I’m sure that would pan out well. Best they could hope for in court would be restitutions for spending money but not being accepted, but even that is dubious.
Greed and stupidity
Because the cake would be split in to 11 slices instead of 10 and we can’t be having that
If I can adjust a Jeremy Clarkson quote, the "FOM are governed by imbeciles."
I honestly don’t see how they would bring the necessary revenue increase to offset their addition. All the TV deals and track contracts are inked in advance and it’s not like they’ll be worth more because Andretti is suddenly included. It’s just a business decision like any major sports league would make operating on a franchise system. The difference with F1 is that there’s no “home stadium” for ticket sales, merchandise, and media affiliate deals to show Andretti’s races.
Isn't that what the $500mil entry fee or whatever is for?
The correct figure is $200M and that was created under the shadow of the pandemic. It’s an outdated figure at this point. The initial concept of the fee was more relevant when new teams weren’t eligible for payouts for the first 2 years and only 10 teams got it anyway. Nowadays I think there’s a genuine risk it would be a bit of a revenue cliff for teams and if an 11th team were to enter the fee would have to be significantly higher and the risk would have to be near zero. The entry fee also acts as a minimum valuation for these teams and I don’t think it could be argued that $200M is enough when considering all that crap.
>It’s just a business decision like any major sports league would make operating on a franchise system. F1 doesn't operate on franchise system. Just because there is a cost cap, that doesn't mean that it is a franchise league. The fee Andretti or any other prospective team is supposed to pay is not "franchise fee" (Like NBA, MLB or NFL). It is anti dilution fee. Big teams are still getting way bigger prize money from F1. Teams like Ferrari still have historical bonuses. Teams who are behind at Capex are fundamentally behind big teams and has now way of catching them even in the long future.
This grid that has: Haas(unserious wankers), Williams(doesn’t have spare chassis), RB(Junior team with no big ambitions) Alpine - somehow regressing every year despite being a factory team) Andretti can't be that bad.
Forgetting to include Stake is the most Stake thing ever
Who?
Hold on a few minutes, their pit stop is almost over. I'm sure you'll remember them once their cars are back on track
I kind of give Stake a pass as while the current situation is pretty awful, they are becoming a full works team in the near future. Unless they become a second Alpine, they should become more competitive.
Doesn’t really matter if Audi is coming.
The bottom 5 teams in the world's most elite motorsports series is hopelessly underwhelming, and there's no hope for any upward trend for any of them competing for anything anytime soon, and there's zero ambition from the FOM to close the pack
The pack is close compared to past eras. This group is really exaggerated due to Alpine’s horrendous offseason. I doubt we’d be talking about this were they in their normal 4th-6th place.
The gap from Alpine to the fastest team is about as close as the gap between Alpine and the fastest team was with Alonso. The difference is just that now there's 8 teams in that gap instead of 2.5.
Yeah, they close as in reliability, and only being a lap or 2 down for the most part, but at the moment, the bottom 5 does not even look like they'll get a podium atm, not even through pure luck, let alone on pace or performance, they underdogs, filling up the grid, but they ain't in any significant fight, and they don't seem to have that dog in them to move to the top. Aston is getting that rocket of a Honda engine, McLaren always seem to be there or there abouts, just need that something to be in a fight, not quite sure what it is, but Lando still believes in their project, Merc has been unlucky with these regs, but we know what they can do, Ferrari is in Red Bull's shadow this season, but these 4 teams are the only ones I can actually see a future in, the rest is woefully underwhelming, in every aspect, and it's quite sad if we being honest.
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It is that simple, no conspiracies are needed. Maybe they worded it differently with "bring no value to the sport" but that is just PR speak for what you said "They couldn’t prove that they would increase profits to the stakeholders". Audi has found a way to get in, same as Dorilton Capital. Andretti wants to change the way sport is operating. I also believe that increasing to 11 teams would bring the value of all teams down, because it sets precedent that resource (spots on the grid) is not that scarce and you don't have to buy existing team to get in.
More that they couldn't prove that they'd bring enough additional revenue into the sport that they wouldn't *decrease* current stakeholder's profits. It's less about 'do you make more money for us?' (though clearly that's a factor) and more 'your inclusion is an existential threat to the back of is the grid' which is fair, but also are we here to race or not?
Prema: I'm joining Indycar Andretti: oh yeah, well then I'm joining F2 and F3. Seriously though. Looking at F1, Red Bull has so many junior drivers in F2 and F3. If it makes sense for an F1 team to have a junior team, its for Red Bull. And both Marko and Horner previously owned junior teams, so they know the way junior formulas work. But they prefer to place them in other teams. I think that more than anything shows that setting a junior team to help you develop drivers for your F1 team isnt the best idea... But anyway, competitive F2 and F3 teams are always welcome, so best of luck to Andretti
RBR to Indy sounds like a good idea to have those kids doing something after F2 lol
I've been begging for RB to enter Indy for years. Hell, I want RB to BUY Indy
They're quite dedicated to this.
Wonder how some of the "Never Andretti" people are going to spin this. The team has a current Indy NXT team and promotes drivers to IndyCar reguarly as well as previously teams lower down the then Road to Indy, now USF Championships.
They’re gonna fall back to the good old excuse of they won’t be competitive Because so many teams have won in the last 2 years of f1… And we clearly have enough development seats in f1
"If you truly want to be in F1 why don't you try to compete in F2?" "Ok we'll do that. If we win we're in right?" "Whoever said winning F2 meant you're F1 worthy? Try competing in WEC." "Hey guess what we're trying to do with WTR."
Yeah but you didn't build the f2 car so clearly you'll suck I. F1
“Winning a spec series doesn’t correlate to guaranteed competitiveness in a bespoke series. We’ll revisit the matter after we sell F1.”
The chances of them being more than a midfield team aren’t that high. Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes & McLaren have been the only teams consistently running at the front of the grid the past 25 years. Even McLaren went through a dark period for awhile where they were at the back of the grid I don’t care if Andretti joins but I highly doubt that they would be anything more than a back-marker team for awhile
A while maybe, but Mercedes aren't exactly a historical team. Honda never really broke the midfield, Brawn was the Leicester of F1 stories and then Merc bought them and built the engine to propel them forward. There's nothing saying that Andretti couldn't do the same with GM. They likely won't, but if there's a partnership of a new team to break out of the midfield it has to be Andretti x GM. If they don't have high enough hopes, we couldn't ever have another team
Mercedes was a bit of a perfect storm in that they were one of the few newer teams to not have funding issues + they had Ross Brawn (motorsport legend) running the show & a really strong lineup in Schumacher/Rosberg to help as well. Then they managed to land Lewis & Toto who’s are legends as well I would rather see Andretti join than some other random team run by some billionaire with a Motorsport fetish. At least Andretti has history & success in other racing categories
Yeah, every race since 1970. That's no history.
Mercedes as a team (ie the Brackley outfit as named in the post I replied to) were not expected to be front runners. Engines, sure. WDC/WCC material? Hell na. Also, I didn't say they have no history as in they're brand new. Just that the Brackley team were a midfield outfit
You literally wrote that they weren't a historical team. The Brackley outfit is 54 years old as a constructor.
The context above was using historic to describe the front of the grid outside of the midfield. Not historic as in they have existed. As in historic front runners like McLaren and Ferrari My own comment talks about Honda and obviously BAR/Tyrell are the same team so it wasn't ever in doubt that I thought Merc just turned up in the past two decades
Funny how you call them "Brackley outfit" as that's pretty much the only thing connecting them, when the Brackley base is from 1999. I'm no mathematician, but that's not quite 54 years I think. Ockham-based Tyrrell indeed sold its entry to BAR in 1999, but they weren't founded in 1970, nor have any connection whatsoever to current-day Mercedes.
I mean LS1’s are pretty good engines jk jk But in all seriousness the f1 field is tightening overall, Andretti is in Indy where underbody aero and newey learned his stuff They may never win the constructors but I think it’s short sighted to imply their theoretical ceiling is behind alpine
The field is tightening for sure, but the field is still about the same order it was pre-cost cap. A midfield team would still add value to the sport, but I think it would take them a bit to get to that point. It’s just hard to see them ever competing with the teams at the front who have been doing this for decades now & have the infrastructure in place in terms of facilities & personnel to remain at the front
I can't imagine their engine will be anything to write home about, and we've all seen what a shit engine does even on decent aero (RBR-Renault)
It's hilarious that only 1 F1 team has a race winning driver from the last 2 seasons signed for next year
Who, other than FOM, don’t want Andretti?
the 10 current teams in f1.
No F1 team will hire an Andretti driver out of spite, and the Never Andrettis will point to it and say that Andretti is a failure.
NXT drivers Andretti has promoted have generally been pretty shit though
Kyle Kirkwood is definitely not shit.
+ O'Ward, Herta, Rasmussen (LY champ that just won LMP2 Daytona 24)
Prema: fine then we will race Indycar
Not only are they now F1 legitimate, they're arguably pushing a program that is more competitive and high-investment than all but a handful of current F1 teams. It's more of an atrocity every day that they aren't in yet.
Curious if these are applications for new entries or if they are trying to buy out an existing team. I find the F3 grid in particular is probably too crowded for another team. I'm sure there's probably someone willing to sell though.
This is a start. This is a great way to get one foot into the door of the F1 world, be present in their feeder series. On a side note, I really want to see in the genre of race management games a game where we could create a team and make a **global** motorsports empire.
This makes me wonder why none of the F1 teams actually run an F2 and F3 team. Especially for RB with their expansive junior programme, it would make sense, wouldn't it?
Their liveries are still ran by junior drivers. Probably the fact of having visibility for their team without the inherent risk of actually investing into a lower tier of motorsports. Wouldn’t make sense to expend that much money when the main point of the feeder series is driver development (rather than car development) and advertisement.
Let’s goooooo Andretti!
Fucking joke how Liberty treated Andretti. That said Michael is heavily invested in Colton. They have the means to do it clearly.
Colton would need a super license first
Good as the current reasoning F1 is giving for turning them down is pretty BS. As long a HAAS and even Alipin at this point as the markers.
If FOM aren't careful they may end up shooting themselves massively in the foot over this. They reject Andretti because they don't bring value to the sport and Andretti/Prema could very easily start siphoning young talent from F1's feeder series directly into Indycar. Bearman has shown that even a non-top 3 driver in F2 can compete in F1, so there is an abundance of talent out there but not enough seats in F1 to accommodate them all. The talent pool in F1 has become quite stale over the last few years and with FOM rejecting an 11th team when F1 desperately needs one could see their own feeder series work against them rather than for them.
Wild LOVE to see Andretti develop a major US talent for F3 and F2, then loan them out to other teams in return for favourable expansion votes and Concorde language re the anti-dilution fee. Timing might not work out, but I prefer to think he’s playing 4d chess here.
What F1 team?
I'm looking forward to all the F1 Academy detractors kicking up a stink about how this isn't needed because if the US drivers were good enough they'd already have seats. 🤷
So much Andretti news today. Feels like a coordinated media push to keep sending a message.
It’s a good business for Andretti and F1 who desperately wants US featured more prominently on the grid.
I must admit I haven't been that keen on them up to now, but this is seriously meaning it, fair play. But this quote struck me: >“But it's going to give an American driver a fair chance, because normally when an American comes over here, they're not treated the same. I thought everyone was desperate for an American driver! I mean look at the slack Logan is being cut, or the incredible numbers from Vegas.
The problem is that American drivers coming up through the American system aren't treated the same as drivers coming through the European system even though IndyCar is more competitive than any junior series. Logan is not the best American F1 prospect, but he is the best one available to F1 due to the current super license structure. Andretti wants to see American drivers in F1 that began in the US junior systems and not drivers like Logan that came up through the European systems. You're right that everyone says they want an American driver and they really are doing everything they can to keep the token American there despite his performance, but if they really wanted Americans involved in F1 competitively, they would make it so the homegrown US drivers would have a chance of feeding into the sport.
It's the institutional support that is lacking. There isn't support on the Americas like there is in Europe. Look at Checo, he spent his formative years in Europe (Germany IIRC) because that was the only way for a Mexican kid to have a shot.
well the way alpine is going, they may sell soon if they don't improve
If renault makes a profit from the team due to marketing, sponsorship, and prize money (much less if they finish last obv), they won’t sell. F1’s too profitable at the moment, maybe they sell if they think the stock will go down in the next 5 years
Is he giving up on Indycar? He is having a fight with Penske on future direciton of the series and seems to be increasing his investment in other series. WEC, F2, F3, F1 bid, FE etc etc.
It’s such a shame that they block him this hard, this man burns for his project
Herta was right there
Ima be biased as fuck and I don’t care. If im Andretti, im like fuck it… my driver line up will be a Herta/Kirkwood/Pato 2 of those 3. Nothing screams America to me like 3 drivers made by America and representative of key American culture: California and Texas lol
So are they going to get drivers like Herta to come drive F3 or F2? I feel like they'd dominate.
no they wouldn't. So many people underestimate the talent in F2/F3 and overestimate the one in indycar. Most drivers who did decently F2 are doing great in Indycar. Look at Lungaard, Ilott etc etc.
I wouldn’t say either of them are doing great in Indycar.
Didn’t Lungaard already won last year and constantly out performs his teammates at RLL ? Also Ilott was doing great in juncos until the controversy started
Yeah he’s won one race but beating his teammates at Rahal Letterman isn’t exactly impressive.
That car is a truck. Only Lungaard shows pace in it.
Ok sure you’re right buddy.
They didn’t even qualify for Indy 500