After a months-long evaluation process, former F1 driver and American racing mogul Michael Andretti has his letter of approval from the FIA to form Formula 1’s 11th team.
But now the real hard work begins, with Formula 1 itself appearing unconvinced of the need for another constructor in the sport.
The process to enter F1 involves two stages. The first is to satisfy the governing body, the FIA, of a prospective team’s capacity to compete in the sport.
Watch every practice, qualifying and race of the 2023 FIA Formula One World Championship live and ad-break free in racing on Kayo Sports. Join now and start streaming instantly >
Andretti was judged against five key selection criteria, including:
(1) sporting and technical ability;
(2) financial capacity to spend the hundreds of millions of dollars a year to be competitive;
(3) racing experience and human resources;
(4) commitment to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2030; and
(5) commitment to achieving a positive social impact with their F1 platform.
Tender documents reportedly ran to several hundred pages each.
It was little surprise that Andretti, with entries in several class-leading categories, including the Formula E world championship, America’s IndyCar and IMSA SportsCar Championship series, and the Supercars in Australia, was found to satisfy these key criteria.
Further, with sustainability and social goals are now baked into the mission statements of most major companies, neither of the final two criteria were never likely to have been an issue.
“Andretti Cadillac is honoured that the FIA has approved Andretti Formula Racing’s expression of interest for the FIA Formula 1 World Championship,” the prospective team said in a statement.
“We appreciate the FIA’s rigorous, transparent and complete evaluation process and are incredibly excited to be given the opportunity to compete in such a historic and prestigious championship.”
With the FIA satisfied with Andretti’s capacity to compete at the highest level, the bid now moves to consideration by Formula 1 itself, owned by American business Liberty Media and headed by former Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali.
Unlike the FIA process, there is no convenient set of criteria against which Andretti can mount its case.
And whereas the governing body enthusiastically — and even a little unexpectedly — opened expressions of interest to enter F1, the sport itself has argued that 10 teams is enough.
PIT TALK PODCAST: American racing royalty Andretti gets FIA approval to become the sport‘s 11th team, but Formula 1 itself is yet to be convinced the bid is ready for entry. Jack Doohan sheds some light on his options for a 2024 race seat. And will Max Verstappen’s likely title triumph in a sprint race have F1 rethinking its Saturday schedule?
THE RISK-REWARD RATIO MUST BALANCE
F1’s response to Andretti’s approval was brief.
“We note the FIA’s conclusions in relation to the first and second phases of their process and will now conduct our own assessment of the merits of the remaining application,” the sport said.
There’s only one word that matters from here on in: value. Expect it to be thrown around a great deal between now and whenever negotiations with F1 conclude.
Formula 1’s position has been articulated by Domenicali, who told F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast earlier this year that his personal opinion was that the sport didn’t need more than 10 teams.
“My ‘no’ is not against someone who wants to come in,” he said. “I need to clarify that, because otherwise it seems that I want to be protectionist. That is not the case. I want to see the right one.
“I need to also respect the ones that have invested in Formula 1 in the last period, because we forget too quickly the respect, and now everyone wants to jump in the coach that is very fast.
“We are building important structures, important dynamics on which the more everyone is growing, the better and stronger the business platform which we are all working on.”
There are a few clear hints at what Domenicali will be considering when it comes to his Andretti dilemma.
The first is that Formula 1 has regularly seen weakly constituted teams come and go, collapsing as soon as they were set up, contributing little to the spectacle but taking advantage of their moment on the global stage.
Prior to Haas’s debut, the sport’s previous intake of teams — Lotus/Caterham, Virgin/Marussia/Manor and Campos/Hispania/HRT — scored three points between them over five excruciating seasons. US F1 was supposed to be among them but never got off the ground to begin with.
The uncompetitive cars, constant name changes and frequent driver rotations reflected badly on the sport when it should have been enjoying the glow of having a string of first-time champions and some thrilling title battles.
That’s said with no disrespect to the talented people who were employed by those teams, many of whom continue working in the sport today. It serves only to illustrate how difficult it is to look even just average in Formula 1.
So with F1 now booming not only among its traditional motorsport constituencies but in new markets around the world, there is understandably little appetite to take a risk on a new team that might or might not succeed.
If Andretti were to flop, it would be a drag on F1.
And if it were to succeed, how much value would it bring to a sport already in the ascendancy anyway?
Lap of the Gods: Murphy’s Mountain epic | 05:25
MOST TEAMS ARE LOUDLY AGAINST IT
While the teams have no formal say in the process, they can loudly state their opinions in the hope of influencing F1’s managers.
Certainly there’s a logic to keeping the 10 notoriously self-interested constructors sweet while F1 attempts to renegotiate the so-called Concorde agreement — that is, the commercial deal that, among other things, divides up the prize money for the next five years or more.
The teams argue that any new bid must immediately bring so much value that it would immediately offset their reduction in prize money for having to split the prize pool 11 ways, a loss of around 10 per cent.
That’s regardless of the fact a prospective team would be up for a US$200 million (A$317 million) ‘anti-dilution fee’ just to get access to the prize pool. Concorde negotiations are ongoing to raise that to as high as US$600 million (A$951 million) in recognition of the teams’ soaring valuations.
That’s no exaggerated figure either. Alpine sold almost a quarter of its F1 team earlier this year in a deal that valued the total operation at approximately US$900 million (A$1.43 billion).
“There is no mature sports league in the world … where you say, ‘I’m setting up a team and I’m joining, thank you very much for making me part of the prize fund’,” Mercedes boss Toto Wolff explained earlier this year, before this week’s announcement.
“You have to give to qualify. You have to go through the ranks. You have to showcase the commitment to the championship that we’ve done over the many years.
“If a team can contribute to the positive development of Formula 1 — and in a way that the other teams have done over the many years, having suffered over the many years — yeah, we have to look at it.
“So far what we’ve seen hasn’t convinced the teams.”
Holdsworth looks towards Bathurst glory | 04:15
THE BATTLELINES ARE DRAWN
Despite the reluctance from F1 and the 10 existing teams, the FIA’s vote of approval is powerful.
The championship belongs to the governing body, and the FIA under president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has been unafraid to remind F1 of this fact.
At times he’s flexed the muscle of the organisation, perhaps most notably by withholding consent to expand the sprint calendar to six races this season, reportedly in a bid to extract a great share of royalties from the booming spot.
Some have wondered whether Andretti would have legal options available to it if F1 attempted to bar it from racing after the FIA had given it the nod.
Sulayem did little to neutralise a potential conflict with Domenicali when he said his selection process selected teams “which satisfied the set criteria and illustrated that they would add value to the sport”.
There’s that ‘value’ word again. It makes it difficult for F1 to decide that Andretti in fact doesn’t add value to the sport without wading into a potentially sticky situation.
And that’s before the potential for F1 to shoot itself in the foot in the US, where it’s tried for decades to gain a foothold, by barring a team that’s billing itself as an all-American entry with the intention of fielding at least one American driver.
Michael Andretti said last year that F1 already gives the appearance of being “snobbish” and a “European club”. He and the FIA have handed the sport just enough rope to prove it.
Andretti, for what it’s worth, said that its combination with General Motors brand Cadillac — though for now that remains largely a sponsorship transaction — and its position as an American racing institution ought to get it the green light.
“The formation of this distinctly American team is an important moment of pride for all our employees and fans,” it said in a statement.
“We feel strongly that Andretti Cadillac’s deep racing competencies and the technological advancements that come from racing will benefit our customers while heightening enthusiasm for F1 globally.
“We look forward to engaging with all of the stakeholders in Formula 1 as we continue our planning to join the grid as soon as possible.”
The battlelines have been drawn. The resolution will be fascinating.
