Last Updated on February 11 2025, 2:45 am
The Andretti father and son have kept their silence since Liberty Media’s F1 operating company (FOM) decided to do a U-Turn on its decision to exclude them from joining the sport. The FIA who regulate F1 had previously given the green light to the Andretti Racing organisation yet a number of the teams had made clear their opposition to an eleventh team.
Of course the issue was all about money as Christian Horner made clear when FOM announced an agreement had been reached over an eleventh team. Surprisingly the F1 bosses appeared to be taken aback around the time of the announcement as the Red Bull boss made clear when asked at the recent Las Vegas Grand Prix
“There’s a lot of rumours going around,” he told Sky F1.“Nobody’s spoken to us about it, but who knows. Obviously, for an American team to come in, I think would be a positive.”
“Ford v GM… pretty sexy”
Michael Andretti had made a big deal about having an American team the grid, which raised eyebrows in certain quarters given the current Haas F1 team is owned by an America brand. Horner went on to explain the difference would be were F1 to have a huge US auto manufacturing brand along with Ford who will partner with Red Bull in building power units from 2026.
“Ford vs. GM could be pretty sexy,” he said as the Andretti proposal would include General Motors building them a power unit. Whilst it appeared to fans and the media it was the teams who had kicked up a fuss about an eleventh team and the diluted prize money, the Red Bull boss was quick to deny the F1 teams and their bosses were not part of the decision making process.
“It’s down to the commercial rights holder and the FIA,” Horner claimed, “and like with all these things, it comes down to the finances and how it’s going to be funded, and how it’s going to be paid?”
Earlier in the year Christian revealed that certain circuits were not capable of hosting more than ten F1 teams and the host of the Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort being one in question. “As long as, logistically, they can be accommodated, we have absolutely no problem with seeing GM come here — but we’re not paying for it.”
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“Operationally, somewhere like Zandvoort, how does that work?” Horner mused. “So, we’ve got no issue with them coming. We welcome them with open arms, but you don’t want to see the prize fund diluted. It will be that question of, who’s side of the cake does it come out of?” He concluded.
The logistics issues were something of a red herring, gin the Concorde Agreement has for years made provision for up to twelve F1 teams. The hosts of the 24 race weekends are aware of this, and party to the contactual arrangements so the problem would be theirs – and not for F1 to resolve.
Clearly cash has always been the issue, with the teams not wanting their prize money diluted and Liberty Media have never offered to stump up the money, from the commercial revenues they receive. To be fair to certain Liberty Media executives, Michael Andretti had upset a number of folk in the paddock some two years ago, when he demanded his racing organisation be allowed to join the grid.
He declared F1 to have an anti-American bias, though much of this idea came from his racing days in the sport. Liberty Media’s CEO made it clear Michael was indeed the problem, when on the grid of last year’s Miami Grand Prix, he accosted motor racing legend Mario. The winner of the F1 championship and the Indy500 was talking to F1’s CEO, Stefano Domenicali, who Greg Maffei interrupted.
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“Mario, I want to tell you that I will do everything in my power to see that Michael never enters Formula 1,” said the Liberty Media executive, and with that he turned on his heels and marched away. Mario told CNN “I could not believe that. That one really floored me. We’re talking about business. I didn’t know it was something so personal. That was really, oh, my goodness. I could not believe it. It was just like a bullet through my heart.”
The US Justice department decided to get involved as a number of lawmakers from Capitol Hill wrote an open letter complaining F1 was in breach of US anti-trust laws. The NFL had recently punished for similar breaches and the fines awarded to American Footballs organisers was in the region of $4.7bn.
As the US Grand Prix approached, the US justice department appeared to be reading a conclusion on the matter, together with accusations of collusion between Toto Wolff, Christian Horner and Lawrence Stroll. The trio were alleged to have had WhatsApp conversations where they conspired to prevent the Andretti team from racing in Formula One.
All three arrived in Austin Texas with their own personal legal representation as the news began to break, that the Andretti name had been dropped from the application to beome F1’s eleventh team and had been replaced by the Cadillac brand, owned by GM.
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Michael Andretti resigned his post in the organisation and hey presto, FOM decided a big American motor manufacturer would in fact after all be good for the sport. The Andrettis chose not to address the issue of what had changed and why suddenly all objections were being dropped, whether financial or logistic.
Now Mario speaks to German publication AMuS, which casts a certain amount of light on the situation much of which remains shrouded in mystery. “The aim was to get an American team on the grid, and we have achieved that,” says Mario. “Michael is also happy, even though he has withdrawn from the project.”
Whilst in motor racing and F1 in particular, egos often rule the roost, but it appears Michael Andretti genuinely wanted the best for his organisation. “He [Michael] simply said: ‘If I’m the obstacle, then I’ll clear the way’” revealed Mario.
Yet there is some regret Andretti Snr has over how the whole issue was handled. “Looking back, we could certainly have done some things better. But I never look back, only forwards. In the end, all that matters is whether you achieve the goal.”
No commercial deal for Cadillac yet done
Despite several months having passed, FOM have yet to reveal the nature of the commercial agreement they have struck with the now so called Cadillac application. Not a jot of their original detailed proposal has changed and been lodged with the FIA with exception of a change in the team’s name and Michael resigning his position with the organisation what will build and run the eleventh F1 team.
There are even now doubts as whether Cadillac will ever build one of the next generation of F1 power units as the team will run with Mercedes power when they join the grid in 2026. Stefano Domenicali cast doubts over the longevity of the next era of F1 power units, the day the FIA announced the final set of regulations giving their design in June last year.
“My personal opinion is that it would be sufficient to use climate-neutral fuel,” the F1 supremo told AMuS. “However, we had to take the manufacturers’ wishes into account.
“Things have developed so quickly that today a decision might be different from two years ago. I am not an engineer, but I must have a vision of what the sport will look like in the future.
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“I can imagine that with the next regulations, we could limit ourselves to sustainable fuel. If we are able to show that we produce zero emissions with it, we can focus on other important aspects of sustainability,” Domenicali outlined.
The original timeline for GM building its own power unit and booming a full works F1 team was for the 2028 season, yet in January this year The Robb Report claimed the decline had now slipped and Cadillac would build an F1 engine “by 2030.”
The lifespan of the new hybrids may be much shorter than was originally expected, they are heavy and the hybrid element makes the cars at least 100kg heavier than a standard V8 combustion engine. With the advent of 100% bio fuels coming in 2026, its not inconceivable that the F1 power unit manufactures would accept a simpler, more cost effective option to powering the most sophisticated racing series in the world.
New hybrid road cars will be banned in the UK and Europe by 2025, as the legislators now understand they are the worst of all options, between fully electric and bio fuel combustion engines. Hydrogen is also making huge strides as a power source for heavy plant and equipment where battery sizes would need to be massive to power these kinds of machines.
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JCB has invested heavily in this technology and with wind turbines lying idle during the night time hours, their wasted production capacity could be used to produce huge quantities of hydrogen.
“You always have to keep an eye on the political climate of the time,” Domenicali continued. “There were moments when we were asked to go completely electrified. We stuck to the hybrid solution and then realised that with sustainable fuel we could show the world that there are other technologies. But at the time when the 2026 engine regulations were written, we could not do without hybrid.”
“At the time [when the regulations were first discussed more than five years ago], it was important to the manufacturers that the share of electric power was increased. Today they might think differently because the world has realised that there are several ways to achieve sustainability. Today they realise that our approach with the [100% bio] fuel could be of benefit to them in the series.”
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Stefano Domenicali goes on to outline that the bio fuels F1 will produce “can be put into any road car as soon as the market is able to offer this fuel at a reasonable price.” F1 has often been at the fore front of innovation which has then translated into road car technology and the future for the global car manufacturers will be a blend of options with electric, bio fuel and hydrogen leading the way.
Hybrid is all but dead for the future of the auto industry and F1 cannot be seen to be lagging behind when its heritage has been developing cutting edge technologies. With 2 billion motor vehicles in existence, bio fuel is the only answer to ensuring the entire planets fleet of combustion engines can go green in almost an instant.
F1 would rather be associated with this project to ‘save planet earth’, than relying on big heavy hybrid power units which now are clearly yesteryear’s answer to the green revolution.
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With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
