To quote Garth Algar from Wayne’s World -“Denied”. That is the response Andretti Global received from the FOM (Formula One Management) regarding its F1 bid to enter the worldwide racing series in 2025. Michael Andretti has slowly been building a racing empire here in America. According to the Andretti Autosport website Andretti owns an Indycar Championship & Indy 500 winning team. He owns teams in the Indy Nxt series, Formula E as well as in IMSA with Wayne Taylor Racing. The former Indycar pilot also has collaborations in Extreme E, the Mexico SuperCopa Series as Andretti Jourdain Autosport & Australian V8 Supercars as Andretti Walkinshaw Global.
Andretti, who completed an ill-fated partial F1 season in 1993 has been trying to put together a Formula team for two years now after his initial announcement of intent came in 2022. It seemed more of a realistic goal when it was announced in January of 2023 that Cadillac, along with GM branding wanted to join Andretti into the F1 foray as his engine manufacturers. Andretti, who has a 60% scale model in the wind tunnel as we speak, was in talks with Renault to power their cars for the ‘25 and beyond seasons until GM & Cadillac made their debut in 2028.
The door has been left open for a possible entry for Andretti and Cadillac in 2028. Per the response from Formula One the reasons for the denial read below & they are pretty damning.
“Our assessment process has established that the presence of an 11th team would not, on its own, provide value to the Championship. The most significant way in which a new entrant would bring value is by being competitive. We do not believe that the applicant would be a competitive participant.”
“The need for any new team to take a compulsory power unit supply, potentially over a period of several years would be damaging to the prestige and standing of the Championship.”
“While the Andretti name carries some recognition for F1 fans, our research indicates that F1 would bring value to the Andretti name rather than the other way around.”
“The addition of an 11th team would place an operational burden on race promoters, would subject them to significant costs, & would reduce the technical, operational & commercial spaces of the competitors.”
“We were not able to identify any material expected positive effect on CRH financial results, as a key indicator of the pure commercial value of the Championship.”
“On the basis of the application as it stands, we do not believe that the Applicant has shown that it would add value to the Championship. We conclude that the Applicant’s application to participate in the Championship should not be successful.”
“We would look differently on an application for the entry of a team into the 2028 Championship with a GM power unit, either as a GM works team or as a GM customer team designing all allowable components in-house. In this case there would be additional factors to consider in respect of the value that the Applicant would bring to the Championship., in particular in respect of bringing a prestigious new OEM to the sport as a PU supplier.”