Why is F1 still resisting Andretti’s 11th team bid?،
With Max Verstappen’s championship already over, a major talking point is likely to dominate Formula 1 in the near future: will the grid welcome an 11th team, Andretti-Cadillac, in 2026.
Earlier this month, the ruling FIA accepted Andretti’s application to join the F1 grid. For this to happen requires the approval of F1’s commercial rights holder, Liberty Media, who must strike a deal with Andretti. This process is not as simple as it might appear in writing.
As has been clear since the FIA opened the process to find one or two new F1 teams, there is significant opposition from the sport’s 10 existing teams to the idea of welcoming a new entry in the future. close. Even if these teams do not have a decisive vote on Andretti’s entry, their unified opposition has undoubtedly helped shape the current lukewarm stance of Formula 1 management.
Speaking to teams in the paddock two weeks ago in Qatar, ESPN made no suggestion that the championship was heating up for Andretti. Ahead of this week’s United States Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, we take a look at the current state of affairs and explore why there is still a major barrier to a potential 11th entry.
Why the opposition?
In a recent press session with ESPN and other select media, FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem – the man more committed than anyone to adding a new team to the F1 grid – was unequivocal on this issue.
“Let’s not play a game here. It’s about money,” he said.
This is undoubtedly true when it comes to teams. At the heart of this are two major financial considerations, both relating to the prize money teams receive at the end of a championship season.
While the Drivers’ Championship attracts more attention and is arguably the more prestigious of F1’s two titles, the Constructors’ Championship is where the money is: teams are paid based on their finishing position each year. season. Andretti’s membership would see this prize fund move from a 10-team distribution to an 11-team distribution.
The rules provide a device to alleviate this problem, called an anti-dilution fee, which is the $200 million Andretti would have to pay to distribute among other teams to alleviate some of this short-term financial pain. Here lies another problem. The current fees were agreed when the last Concorde Agreement was concluded in 2020.
F1 teams believe that amount is now significantly below its value, given the boom F1 has enjoyed since Netflix’s documentary “Drive to Survive” rose to global prominence during the pandemic. It is likely to increase significantly when F1 teams agree the next commercial deal in 2026.
As proof, teams can point to the recent investment in Alpine: in July, a consortium paid $200 million for a 24% stake in the team, meaning the overall value of the team was placed in the $900 million region. This explains why teams would feel so aggrieved if Andretti could pay $200 million to own an entity that would immediately be worth much more once it struck a commercial deal with F1.
In the short term, Andretti must prove to F1 that any financial loss the other 10 teams suffer in the short term is worth it because of the additional interest and investment it can bring to the sport.
Speaking on the matter, Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur said: “Our view is consistent with what we have said so far on this subject. If the commitment of an 11th team is additive to sport, so we see it in a positive way.”
The health of other teams
It would be easy to suggest, as Michael Andretti unwisely did earlier this year, that opposition to his entry is purely a matter of “greed.” But there are deeper reasons worth considering.
In F1 terms, the COVID-19 pandemic seems like an eternity ago given the boom period that followed, but several teams were on their knees during the early months of the lockdown. The scars are still clearly there. The financial health of the grid – and fears that at least one of them would go bankrupt – was a determining factor in F1’s desire to return to racing in July 2020, the first time an international competition would resume normally.
“All the teams on the grid made a big effort,” Vasseur said in Qatar two weeks ago. “We must keep in mind that three or four years ago, almost half of the network was on the verge of bankruptcy. We must avoid being arrogant.”
The 10 existing teams feel like they raced in F1 when things were dark and helped make it the entity it is today. This view was well expressed by Haas boss Guenther Steiner.
“I would love to go back to 2020, I remember being on those video conferences when the pandemic hit and four teams were wondering ‘are we there next year or not’,” Steiner said. “We were all struggling to stay alive, and a lot of people and team owners invested their money to stay alive and make F1 what it is today.”
He added: “Why would we dilute what we have just to give a team to someone else when F1 is booming? Because who knows what? [it will be like] in three, four years. And I come back to it, it was only in 2020 that we were fighting to stay alive as F1. The 10 teams present have gone through difficult times.”
Williams boss James Vowles also gave a detailed explanation of his team’s opposition to Andretti, suggesting that teams are still not thriving despite the current health of F1 in general.
“It’s important to know that we’re not the only ones who aren’t financially stable,” Vowles said. “I would say that’s probably not the case for half the grid.
“I would say that adding an eleventh team is a reasonable thing, but only to the extent that the tenth team on the grid is financially stable.”
He added that he was “more than happy to introduce new entities, but the pie has to grow to keep from shrinking.”
Does F1 need Andretti?
Then there is the question of the benefits that Andretti himself would bring. Andretti himself suggested that other teams would be concerned about his entry stealing American sponsors, but he might have reason to worry about other teams stealing the key element of his bid.
While several F1 figures told ESPN that Andretti’s team itself is considered fairly unremarkable, the opposite is true for General Motors and Cadillac.
Vowles, rather provocatively, suggested that Williams would be open to a partnership with General Motors if its entry with Andretti failed.
“I welcome GM with open arms, Williams welcomes GM with open arms and I hope to forge a relationship with them if things don’t work out,” Vowles said. “It’s an incredible entity that I think could make the sport better, so we’re not closed-minded to people who come to play this sport, but what we’re very careful about is is to protect the sport we have right now.”
Reading this, it’s easy to understand why people like Andretti and Ben Sulayem think F1 teams are only looking to protect themselves, rather than genuinely worrying about the long-term health of the championship.
As it stands, General Motors is not committed to building an engine, but will instead enter into a technical partnership with Andretti. Renault would probably supply an engine to the team for its arrival in F1.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner has suggested a better outcome would be for F1 to convince General Motors to enter as an engine supplier, not just as Andretti’s partner. Audi is already set to do the same for 2026 and Ford is expected to partner with Red Bull Powertrains, even though it is not a powertrain manufacturer in its own right.
“I think the arrival of GM in particular in Formula is an extremely positive thing,” Horner said. “We see Ford coming back in 2026. Ford versus GM would be fantastic.
“But ideally I think they should make their own engine. And I think when you look at the way Audi entered the sport, they acquired an existing team and franchise. Should it be different for the others ?
“I think this is where Liberty and the FIA need to come together and present us with a collective position because we cannot have one rule for one, another for the others.
