News of F1 management denying the entry of Andretti has taken the sport by storm. Despite receiving the green light from the FIA, they couldn’t cross the final hurdle, which turned out to be a huge setback for the American team and its shareholders. Now, their entry won’t be considered before 2028, and American fans are not impressed. This, ironically resulted in the fall of shares of the Formula 1 group by more than 1%. However, it is unsure if the Andretti decision played a big part in it.
According to Adam Stern on X, the stock market for Formula 1 Group plummeted following this decision. A lot of fans believed that F1 blocking Andretti was the reason for this fall. Although this isn’t a sure-shot assumption, a huge part of the F1 community is certainly happy with the hypotheses.
They took to their social media accounts to share their disagreement with the decision. So much so that a few fans also talked about boycotting the sport and shifting to IndyCar and NASCAR from the 2024 season onwards.
It all goes back a few months when the FIA put a positive nod to Andretti‘s team in Formula 1. However, they still needed clarification from the Formula 1 Group to enter the sport. As the time came for the 2026 verdict, the F1 group denied it right away.
They cited that Andretti won’t bring value and competition to the field, a verdict that seemed bizarre to many. They kept the window for 2028 open but Andretti said that the team “strongly disagrees” with the statement. Mario Andretti, father of Michael Andretti said he was devastated by the decision.
The Andretti saga
Michael Andretti’s efforts to get into F1 have been raging for well over two years now. The son of 1978 F1 world champion Mario Andretti even tied up with Cadillac to prepare themselves for an entry by 2026. But their efforts went in vain.
Andretti’s entry into the sport meant they would have been the 11th team on the grid. This is something that the existing teams have been against from day one. They don’t want a new team for mainly one reason – division of profits.
F1 divides all its profits earned throughout the season into ten equal parts. Having a new team would dilute the profit percentage. Interestingly, to tackle this, Andretti and his team even agreed on an anti-dilution fee of $200 million. Still, the other teams were not convinced, thinking they deserved more because of their higher valuation.
The Formula 1 Management also said that it 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.”
Renowned team principals such as Toto Wolff were frontrunners in the campaign against Andretti. Besides being the bosses of the teams, they are also shrewd businessmen and know their profits in and out.
Keeping everything aside, the decision comes amid Formula 1 Group’s efforts to try and gain popularity in the United States. They already have three races in the country now and having another team from the US could have improved their business even more. Unfortunately, it is something they seem to be against for the moment.
