![[Adam Stern] "The word is that the FIA will soon announce that it has no objection to Andretti Global getting an F1 entry.](https://i.imgur.com/AIJ5RGA.png){kind=link}
The bad news is that … to get an entry one also needs agreement from the Formula One group and there seems no interest at all in them agreeing."
The bad news is that … to get an entry one also needs agreement from the Formula One group and there seems no interest at all in them agreeing."
I’d argue FE and IMSA are vastly different in terms of scale, budget and car development.
None of the series that Andretti participate in require development of a car. FE is 99% spec, with non-spec powertrains coming from the manufacturers iirc, and IMSA is a non-development, factory backed race team. And even there the cars are extremely limited in development potential.
Operationally they may be able to do it, but building a car seems like it’ll be a completely new challenge that I’m not necessarily sure they’re up to.
GM/Cadillac isn’t just a naming exercise like Alfa Romeo. The car would be developed in a GM wind tunnel with GM engineers.
That’s actually the first I’ve heard of that. My understanding was it’d be a naming partnership with a possible engine rebranding and eventual PU manufacturing, but I hadn’t seen anything about that extending to the car development as well. I could be wrong about that, and it would increase their likelyhood of success quite a bit, but it’s still going to be a massive risk
I still have concerns though. F1 is a whole other scale and the budgets reflect that. Their entire 4 Indycar program wouldn’t even get close to reaching the budget cap (estimating 10 million/year/car + overhead) and a major F1 failure could cause a cascading budgetary crisis through their entire motorsports operation.
“assistance offered by General Motors’ wealth of technical facilities in the States.” https://the-race.com/formula-1/andretti-cadillacs-f1-engine-options-and-works-team-potential/
I interpret that as they’ll have access to facilities such as wind tunnels and manufacturing equipment, but will still be developing the car on their own
While I agree that the wording in The Race has the same meaning to me, it just makes no sense when you think about the implications.
That’s impossible. They would need to have already hired enough people now for anyone to start working on a 2026 car in 2025 (you need to factor in gardening leave in 2024). GM already has a good base of people with experience in developing race cars and GM is not giving them up to join Andretti because GM competes against Andretti in other series.
I remember hearing about them hiring for an F1 project, but I don’t know where any of that went.
That again speaks to why I’m skeptical of them being successful. They don’t have the staff they’d need to run a full F1 operation, and being based in the US isn’t going to help attract talent from existing teams.
I don’t disagree that GM might help, but at that point why would they bother with partnering with Andretti? Other than the name they bring very little to the table.
Ferrari uses AF Corse to run their WEC Hypercar program. Lamborghini uses Iron Lynx for their upcoming WEC Hypercar program. Lawrence Stroll is paying Honda to make a 2026 engine exclusively for Aston Martin.
Andretti is perfectly capable of running trackside operations and if Michael opens his wallet to even pay for a good chunk of development cost, why not.
Do you have any link to share on this? I’m curious to know how deep GM’s implication would be in Andretti’s F1 Team.
For example “assistance offered by General Motors’ wealth of technical facilities in the States.” https://the-race.com/formula-1/andretti-cadillacs-f1-engine-options-and-works-team-potential/
Quick googling reveals that Andretti has no wind tunnel and everyone following IMSA or WEC knows that they are perfectly capable to build a race car.
Thanks!