Michael Andretti has hit out at incumbent teams for allegedly preventing Andretti-Cadillac from entering F1.
Andretti has announced plans to establish an F1 team in partnership with General Motors and Cadillac. Despite FIA president Mohammed bin Suleyem’s online and interview showing his support for the team, the reaction from F1 has been lukewarm.
Of the existing F1 teams, only Alpine and McLaren have expressed support for Andretti. F1 teams don’t have an official say in who will or won’t participate, but the F1 side seems to want to support existing F1 teams and is less than enthusiastic about Andretti’s entry.
In 2021, the so-called Concorde Agreement stipulated that new entrants to F1 would have to pay a $200 million anti-dilution fee to make up for lost revenue for existing F1 teams.
For Andretti, the $200 million funding is fine and available, but there is still some resistance from the F1 teams.
“It’s all about the money,” Michael Andretti told Forbes.
“First of all, they think they can dilute a tenth of the prize money, but they are very greedy to get all the American sponsors as well. I’m not thinking about what’s best for the growth of the series as a whole.”
F1 team owners and F1 are preventing Andretti from joining, but he has a powerful ally in Mohamed bin Sulayem. Earlier this week, the FIA president reiterated that there was plenty of room on the grid for additional teams.
“That’s the difference between President Mohammed’s position and the team owner’s position,” explained Michael Andretti.
“In F1, the owners are looking out for themselves, not what is best for the series. Chairman Mohamed is looking to the future of the sport. Mohamed understands that. He is a racer. Yes, we understand that we need one or two more teams in the series.”
