F1 News – F1 rejects Andretti’s bid for 2025 or 2026 entry

Formula One Management has definitively rejected Andretti Global’s bid to join the F1 paddock despite the FIA approving the move last year.

Michael Andretti, who drove for McLaren in 1993 and is the son of 1978 F1 World Champion Mario Andretti, had initially submitted his bid to join the field in 2022 and had been the only candidate to pass the FIA’s application process before F1 were able to review the American team’s submission and make a final decision.

F1 says that Andretti declined an invitation to present their bid in a face-to-face meeting: “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.”

In their statement, F1 say they considered multiple aspects including, commercial, competitiveness and fan impact before concluding that “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”.

The statement continued, saying that an 11th entry on the grid 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.

“The presence of an 11th team would not, on its own, provide value to the Championship. The most significant way in which a new entrant would bring value is by being competitive. We do not believe that the Applicant would be a competitive participant.”

The report also states that Andretti would get more value out of the relationship that F1 would: “while the Andretti name carries some recognition for F1 fans, our research indicates that F1 would bring value to the Andretti brand rather than the other way around.” 

The Andretti brand is well known in motorsport and currently runs teams in multiple series including IndyCar, IMSA SportsCar Championship, as well as in FIA-run series: Formula E and Extreme E.

The Andretti entry would initially have needed to find a Power Unit supplier, after a few years they would have General Motors, one of America’s largest automotive manufacturers, supplying them. The Andretti bid has been backed by one of GM’s brands, Cadillac.

“Having a GM PU supply attached to the Application at the outset would have enhanced its credibility, though a novice constructor in partnership with a new entrant PU supplier would also have a significant challenge to overcome.”

As 2025 is the final year of the current regulations before a planned big change of car and power units, not letting a new team join for that season does make some sense: “We do not believe that there is a basis for any new applicant to be admitted in 2025 given that this would involve a novice entrant building two completely different cars in its first two years of existence.”

However, Andretti was also rejected for 2026 on the reasoning that “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” and “the need for any new team to take a compulsory power unit supply, potentially over a period of several seasons, would be damaging to the prestige and standing of the Championship.”

While Andretti in seemingly not wanted on the grid, a relationship with General Motors is something that Formula One Management is interested in as they finish out their statement with: “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.”

F1 said that none of the current teams were consulted while carrying out the assessment.

Click here to read full text of the statement.

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