Formula 1's Andretti Decision Is an Insult

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Formula 1's Andretti Decision Is an InsultNurPhoto - Getty Images

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Andretti Global has spent the past two years growing its Formula 1 bid into something that looked undeniable. The Michael Andretti-led operation spent 2023 winning a title in an open wheel world championship, earning approval from the FIA to discuss an F1 expansion bid with the series, and securing General Motors first as a sponsor and later as a powertrain provider. In a decision that is insulting to auto racing as a sport, Formula One Management has denied the program anyway.

Cadillac alone should have made this a moot point. This program represents a major investment from one of the world's biggest volume automakers, the exact type of manufacturer partner that F1 had desperately hunted throughout the past two decades. The brand's commitment to make an engine makes this as serious an expansion effort as any that joined the grid in the brief manufacturer boom of the 2000s, and far more serious than the accepted bids from HRT, Virgin, Caterham, and Haas F1 that joined the grid in the 2010s.

If Cadillac was not enough, the significant steps Andretti has already made to ramp up the operation in advance of a potential 2025 grid spot should have done the job. As Luke Smith of The Athletic reported earlier this week, the operation already employs 120 people and has already begun wind tunnel testing a 2025 car that will now never race. 50 GM employees are included in that count, further reinforcing that this operation's ties to General Motors go well past a name on the engine cover.

Whether or not Andretti's domestic racing programs are good enough to justify an F1 team right now is beside the point, but his Andretti Autosport has won titles in IndyCar and recently secured the driver's championship in Formula E. In both series, Andretti competes directly with McLaren-branded operations owned and run by the same group that operates the McLaren Formula 1 team. Even as the operation's IndyCar team has struggled mightily the past two years, Andretti's cars have outrun the McLaren entries.

Those are the reasons the program should be on the grid. FOM cites a handful of reasons that it should not, starting with worries that the program would not be competitive in 2025 and that a new wave of regulations in 2026 could further disrupt the team's ability to compete. While it is true that any new operation could be uncompetitive even after beginning development of a 2025 car, existing Formula 1 teams have gone full seasons without scoring a single point. If Andretti does not finish a race in 2025, it would have been exactly as successful as Haas F1 was in 2021.