Formula One Management Ltd (FOM) has rejected Andretti Formula Racing’s bid to join the grid as early as 2025, but the sport remains open to an application for 2028 when General Motors is planned to enter as a power unit supplier
In October, the FIA confirmed it had accepted Andretti Formula Racing, LLC’s (Andretti/Applicant) proposal to join the Formula 1 grid, but would need approval from the sport’s commercial rights holder, FOM, before formal entry to the FIA Formula 1 World Championship.
But having assessed Andretti’s application, FOM has issued a statement noting that the “presence of an 11th team on the grid would not, in and of itself, provide value to the Championship.
“Any 11th team should show that its participation and involvement would bring a benefit to the Championship,” FOM’s statement continued. “The most significant way in which a new entrant would bring value is by being competitive, in particular by competing for podiums and race wins.
“This would materially increase fan engagement and would also increase the value of the Championship in the eyes of key stakeholders and sources of revenue such as broadcasters and race promoters.”
Something rather curious in the FOM statement was that Andretti turned down an invitation to sit down and meet with FOM last December to discuss their application.
“We subsequently wrote to the Applicant on 12 December 2023 extending an invitation to an in-person meeting at our offices in order for the Applicant to present its application, but the Applicant did not take us up on this offer.”
Evidently, this failure not to even want to engage directly didn’t help Andretti’s chances of their entry being accepted by FOM, who concluded its commercial assessment stated: “We do not believe that the Applicant would be a competitive participant.”
No current teams were consulted during the assessment period, however, FOM said that its decision “took account of the impact of the entry of an 11th team on all commercial stakeholders in the Championship”.
Andretti’s bid to become Formula 1’s newest addition from as early as 2025 had already been met with stern opposition from incumbent teams, who were concerned about a reduction of the prize pot and that at a lot of the current circuits, there was not any space in the pit garages for an 11th team.
FOM also argued that the addition of an 11th team would “place an operational burden on race promoters, would subject some of them to significant costs, and would reduce the technical, operational and commercial spaces of the other competitors.”
Furthermore, FOM claimed that while the Andretti brand carries some recognition amongst Formula 1 fans, “research indicates that F1 would bring value to the Andretti brand rather than the other way around.”
“On the basis of the application as it stands, we do not believe that the Applicant has shown that it would add value to the Championship. We conclude that the Applicant’s application to participate in the Championship should not be successful,” FOM added.
“We would look differently on an application for the entry of a team into the 2028 Championship with a GM power unit, either as a GM works team or as a GM customer team designing all allowable components in-house. In this case there would be additional factors to consider in respect of the value that the Applicant would bring to the Championship, in particular in respect of bringing a prestigious new OEM to the sport as a PU supplier.”
The rejection focuses largely on engine supply as Andretti would be required to function as a customer from 2025 or 2026 before the planned arrival of a Cadillac-branded General Motors power unit in 2028. It also expressed concern that the Applicant might have to build two entirely different cars in 2025 and 2026 and felt that the Applicant did not fully understand the ramifications of this ambitious undertaking.
“Formula 1, as the pinnacle of world motorsport, represents a unique technical challenge to constructors of a nature that the Applicant has not faced in any other formula or discipline in which it has previously competed, and it proposes to do so with a dependency on a compulsory PU supply in the initial years of its participation,” continued the statement. “On this basis, we do not believe that the Applicant would be a competitive participant.
In the background, Andretti has been pressing ahead with its Formula 1 programme and intends to test a prototype full-scale model in the wind tunnel this year. Andretti has also already assembled a technical team to oversee the development, with former Renault engineer Nick Chester in charge of fronting the operation.
Along with Chester, Andretti has formulated a structure that includes Jon Tomlinson, who was also at the Enstone squad at the time, as Head of Aerodynamics, and John McQuilliam, who upholds an extensive background in F1 working with teams such as Williams, was hired as Chief Designer.
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