Andretti is still working on the F1 car and won’t accept rejection.
It “strongly disagrees” with the commercial rights holder’s decision to turn down the world-be Andretti racing team, which is backed by General Motors. The team will keep working on a possible entry.
F1 said on Wednesday the proposed Formula Racing application, which would be run under the name Andretti Cadillac, “should not be successful,” even though the FIA had already given Andretti the go-ahead.
F1’s thorough review of Andretti’s bid raised several concerns, such as about how competitive the team might be, how the engines would be set up, and what value Andretti could add to the championship.
F1 was especially worried about Andretti’s plans to enter 2025 with a car built according to one set of rules and then design a new one according to a completely different set of rules for 2026.
Formula 1 said this “gives us reason to question its comprehension of the scope of the challenge involved.”
Andretti is a winner in many categories, such as IndyCar and Formula E; it is also working with a well-known sportscar maker.
However, F1 said that Andretti would be facing a challenge it has “not faced in any other formula or control in which it has previously competed” and “would not be a competitive participant” with a short-term engine supply.
It said, “Andretti and Cadillac are both successful global motorsports organizations committed to putting a real American works team in F1 to compete with the best teams in the world.”
“We are proud of how far we have come in making a very competitive auto and power unit. We have a very experienced team working on it, and we are continuing to work quickly.”
Andretti built a model that follows the current rules in a wind tunnel as part of a lot of work that was done with the hope that it would be allowed to enter.
“The thing about Formula One is that there is no relegation. It’s not like football.” In football, you are relegated if you don’t put in the work and have the money to do it. That’s your fate. Of course, in Formula One, once you’re in, you can stay in for a long time. Not forever, because nothing lasts forever. That is the hard part.”
Steiner’s old team, Haas, is still the newest in Formula 1, having joined the grid in 2016. It hasn’t been able to compete for a lot of that time—it’s only finished higher than eighth once, and that was in 2023.
Since Haas’s first race, F1 has changed. Teams now have a budget limit each year, and there are rules about how to improve in the wind tunnel. Each year, the champions get the last time, and the next year, they get the most.
Because of this and the fact that F1 is still very popular around the world, Steiner said that expectations for what a new team should bring to the table have changed a lot since Haas joined.
“To begin with, Formula One was very different when we got there than it is now.” When we came in in 2016, I think there were already some backmasking teams, so it was normal for some teams to not be very fast. That meant we didn’t have to worry as much as any other team would now.
Everyone thinks that all of the teams are now competitive and stable. When we got there, there was a need for new teams, so things were very different.
But it’s still hard to do as a job, and it hasn’t gotten any easier since the budget was limited. This means that if someone wants to join and be competitive by spending more than everyone else the first year or two, they can’t. You can’t do more than they can. You only lack the experience that other people have had.
“That means it’s really tough. Even though I’m not saying it can’t be done, if you want to get in now, you need to get your team ready and make sure that you are as competitive as Formula One needs you to be.
“There isn’t a weak team left; it’s very tough.” You can’t fail. The people in charge of Formula One would not let anyone fail. That’s why you need to be sure you can prove you won’t fail.”