It’s not exactly surprising, but still disappointing: F1 has rejected Andretti’s bid to join the grid. Even though the FIA already approved of Andretti, F1 has now locked them out of the sport. So what can Andretti do now? Well, let’s look at the three different options.
Buy a different team
Yeah, I know, this is the cheap (well, not that cheap, but we’ll get to that later) cop-out that F1 has been suggesting. Toto Wolff and Helmut Marko have said that Andretti is probably better off buying a different team rather than trying to make their way onto the grid as a new entry.
The thing is… they’re probably right. F1 clearly doesn’t want Andretti. At this point it might just be easier to buy up a different team and get it over with. It’s what happened when Mercedes bought Brawn, when Renault bought Benetton and when Red Bull bought Jaguar. It’s the quickest and most surefire way to get onto the grid. And it’s not like there’s a lack of options. Sauber is bouncing from carmaker to carmaker and renting out their team as advertising space in the meantime. Haas is in shambles with Gene Haas trying to invest as little as possible. Red Bull is trying so hard to neglect AlphaTauri that they completely forgot to give it a proper name this year.
But that brings us to the cost. Michael Andretti himself has said in the past that nobody was willing to sell to him. But even if they do, then there is a hefty price tag on those teams. Alpine got a massive monetary injection last year of $600 million, driving up their price tremendously. The CEO of Rodin Carlin, which also tried to join F1 as a new team, revealed that he was asked to pay upwards of $900 million for a team like AlphaTauri. Even if Andretti could fork all of that over, should they? If you buy up a new team like that, you need several years to get your own organization properly in place. Just look at Aston Martin: that organization took over in 2019, but it wasn’t until four years later that they actually managed to do something good. F1 may fear that Andretti won’t be competitive right out of the gate, but buying up a different team definitely won't be any different in that regard.
Sit it out
F1 has offered them a chance to try again at a later time. 2028 to be precise. Yes, it will most likely cost Andretti just as much as buying those new teams (more on that in a different article), but it could just work.
Operative word being ‘could’. Because what’s to say F1 won’t find a new reason to block them again at that time? The relationship between the Andretti family and Formula One Management is already very strained as it is. Stringing them along for two more years only to once again go “Sorry mate, better luck next time” will probably not help that.
Keep trying
Is that even an option? Maybe, maybe not. Andretti has some pretty heavy firepower in their corner. They are a recognizable brand in the US, and we all know how much of a crush F1 has on the US. They have the support of the FIA, with president Mohammed Ben Sulayem openly campaigning for Andretti to join and preemptively undermining almost any argument F1 can come up with. The FIA have already indicated that they are going to look into this situation to see what they can do next. And they even have EU law on their side, which states that blocking Andretti could be in violation of its fairness and competitiveness rules.
Technically, that could be enough for Andretti to seek help in court. But once again, the question becomes if that’s really best for the relationship. If Andretti forces a court order that they can join, in the face of such overwhelming opposition, then it probably won’t be that happy of a companionship once Andretti actually makes it to the grid. There have even been suggestions that this could lead to the ridiculous situation where Andretti is allowed to race, but now allowed to be seen in the broadcast. If it actually comes to that, I think there is only one loser in all of this: the fans.