An 11th team in 2024?
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After the failure of the takeover of the Sauber team, Mario Andretti announced that his family intended to set up a Formula 1 team from scratch with the ambition of arriving on the grid in 2024.
Will Formula 1 welcome an eleventh team from 2024? Through a message posted on his account Twitter this Friday, Mario Andretti relaunched the rumours. In effect, the 1978 world champion has announced that his son Michael, boss of the family team, has started the procedure to arrive in F1 in the years to come. « Michael has applied to the FIA to hire a new F1 team from 2024, » said the winner of the Indianapolis 500 in 1969. His company, Andretti Global, has the resources and meets all the requirements in this regard. He is now awaiting the FIA’s decision. An announcement that comes a few weeks after the bitter failure of negotiations between the Andretti family and the owners of Sauber for a takeover of the Swiss structure. Indeed, the current owner of the team bearing the name Alfa Romeo refused a total sale of the company. A failure which could ultimately only be a setback for the arrival of Andretti Autosport in Formula 1alongside his commitments in IndyCar, Formula E and Extreme E.
Michael has applied to the FIA to field a new F1 team starting in 2024. His entry, Andretti Global, has the resources and checks every box. He is awaiting the FIA’s determination.
— Mario Andretti (@MarioAndretti) February 18, 2022
A bill that promises to be salty for the Andretti
Contacted by British magazine Motorsport, Michael Andretti confirmed this project but refused to give more details on this subject. However, several obstacles will be in the way of a family committed to motorsport for three generations. First of all, as confirmed by Mario Andretti, the agreement of the FIA will be essential but could only be a formality. The other concern will be of a financial nature since entry into F1 is anything but free. The latest Concorde Agreements, linking the teams to F1, stipulate that any new team will have to pay an entry fee of 200 million dollars (176.6 million euros). A measure whose objective is to secure the value of the ten teams already in place and avoid the fiasco experienced in the early 2010s when HRT, Caterham and Marussia landed without adequate means and ended up disappearing as quickly as they are. appeared. As F1 gains popularity in the United States and one of Andretti Autosport’s IndyCar partners will appear at the next Miami Grand Prix, Michael Andretti intends to take advantage of this enthusiasm to settle permanently in the discipline.
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