Andretti: Contender or Chaos?

Just earlier this week, it was announced that Andretti’s bid to join the Formula 1 grid had been accepted by the FIA, however this has caused a wave of both controversy and questions across the paddock leaving both teams and fans overcome with questions that currently have no answers.

Michael Andretti had previously announced his interest of having his company ‘Andretti’ make an appearance on the Formula 1 grid back in early 2022 in a tweet announcing that he had signed some paperwork with Formula 1 to initiate the process of joining the grid. It was then later announced that the car manufacturer Cadillac would be partnering the Indiana based team in their pursuit to join the grid. The question at the time being if the team would be a title contender or a potential back marker. Which at the time was more likely due to the current cost of running and owning a team making it extremely difficult for new teams to not only become a title contender but even making it onto the grid in the first place.

This has sparked controversy amongst the paddock as many fans believe that the current cost to join the sport will deter new teams from entering the sport and restricts access and opportunities given to people in the sport.

In an interview with Sky Sports, Aston Martin teams boss Lawrence Stroll claims he does not welcome the entrance of Andretti to the sport and currently believes that the ‘business is on fire’ and believes that ‘if it isn’t broken, you don’t need to fix it’. Suggesting that even though an 11th team would bring closer racing and more entertainment, it isn’t currently required to keep the business that is Formula 1 running smoothly.

After I interviewed an avid fan of the sport about the circumstance and asking their opinion and thoughts around the current cost of teams entering the sport to which they responded, ‘The cost to join F1 is astronomically high’ and believe it has ‘Isolated privateer team’s chances of joining which helped build F1 through the 90’s, with Andretti paying around $200 million as an entry fee alone, fans believe it is ‘dissuading big manufacturers and isolating privateers’ as they believe ‘It’s incredibly hard for new teams to join without continued persistence’.

However, this could remain an issue for many years to come as the FIA appear to show no interest in making the sport more accessible for new teams. Now the question is will this hinder Andretti’s charge to the top?