Andretti F1 - 2025

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Skam85

They shouldn't, Prost was one of the best of all time but an awful team owner.

Agree - but I can see it being part of a somewhat jaundiced view re Andretti from at least some of the teams.

[Sandgroper]

More teams the merrier for us supporters

[GTRMagic]

So... is it an immutable fact that Andretti Autosport won its last Indycar championship in 2012 with Ryan Hunter-Reay? 2012!!

In a spec car and engine on a control tyre, suitably tuned tweaked and twiddled by the team of course.

But the components rock up out of a Dallara or a Honda box and no development or building of same is required.

And these are the very same people who think they can build a race car in the USA (wonder who designed and manufactured the scale model they apparently have in the wind tunnel..) with all the bells and whistles of technology that the IndyCar team does not need nor have.

Its interesting that Mr Andretti reckons the teams think of his bid as coming from some "hillbillies" as in motor racing terms, you could perhaps form an argument to suggest something as disparaging...

[Tourer]

GM only interested in entering F1 with Andretti - going to Las Vegas to lobby FOM. All these public statements and claims are getting beyond tedious (although no doubt some are simply answering questions asked by journalists).

Either FOM will reach commercial terms with Andretti or it won't - no amount of public statements, breast beating etc will change that. If Andretti gets in, then it can say what it wants as often as it likes (& we can critique that as we do with existing teams) but to me it seems that they'd be much better served by showing some public restraint now and professionally working through the negotiation with FOM.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Tourer

GM only interested in entering F1 with Andretti - going to Las Vegas to lobby FOM. All these public statements and claims are getting beyond tedious (although no doubt some are simply answering questions asked by journalists).

Either FOM will reach commercial terms with Andretti or it won't - no amount of public statements, breast beating etc will change that. If Andretti gets in, then it can say what it wants as often as it likes (& we can critique that as we do with existing teams) but to me it seems that they'd be much better served by showing some public restraint now and professionally working through the negotiation with FOM.

I don't know. A lot of this is playing out in public. For example statements from Williams that they don't think Andretti has a place in F1, but they would love to partner with someone like GM. The statement from GM is clearly that they are looking to make the pie larger and not just serve those who already have a slice.

Richard

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Richard C

I don't know. A lot of this is playing out in public. For example statements from Williams that they don't think Andretti has a place in F1, but they would love to partner with someone like GM. The statement from GM is clearly that they are looking to make the pie larger and not just serve those who already have a slice.

Richard

I know what you mean but IMHO all this public stuff actually demeans both Andretti and F1. The answer to journo questions from Williams was of course 4 or so races ago now but has been dredged up in the article I linked. Just seems to me that a quieter approach might be more productive - but then I'm a "no fuss" kind of guy generally.

[Teretonga]

No Andretti. no Cadillac?
I'm not surprised.
If I was with their board I'd feel the same way.

I think the attitude of the teams is appalling.
Especially those teams that are off the back of the grid.
I did a tally ofn points scoring percentage after Brazil


There have been a total of 2142 points ip for grabs in the GPS including Brazil this year.
Plus the points for the six sprints (216) bringing to a total of 2358 points.
Scores are approximate in that im not going to micro am10,1000 of a point.

RBR has scored .365 of all the points or 36.5% of all the points.
Mercedes 0.178, just under 18%
Ferrari scored 0.169 or just under 17%
McLaren have scored 0.13165 or just over 13%
AMR scored 0.12184 or just over 12%
The top five account for just over 73.5% of all the points, hardly surprising in view of the fact that points only got to 10th place and the five teams account for five cars.
Then it falls away rapidly.
Alpine scored 0.0504 or barely over 5%
Williams 0.01307 or about 1.3%
Alpha Tauri is at0.0098, slightly less than 1%
Sauber Alfa Romeo is at 0.0074 or 3/4 of 1%
Haas is at 0.0056 so just over 1/2 a percent.

There has been a lot of slanging off at Andretti over the engineering side of the Indy car operation in so far as a spec chassis and simpler technically etc but it costs a fraction of a F1 team budget to run an Indycar for a season.

A F1 team has a spending limit of around $140/150 mill for a season although that's not all the costs but just the ones in meaningful consideration. The real cost is easily 150-200 million a year.
But what two of the lesser teams spend making up numbers in rounding the field out to 20 cars would practically pay for the entire 27-28 regular entries for an entire season. You would certainly spend more running the bottom three teams in F1 then all the teams involved in running Indycar for an entire season.

But for what?
The bottom teams are simply filling out the field.
They rarely compete for wins or podiums, and yet their managers are the some of the most vocal in voicing their opinion that they don't want an 11th team!
But this is just an exaggerated sense of entitlement.
The reality is that they would face another competitor who they fear may surpass them. In which case it would be even harder to score points.
And they would lose revenue, a smaller piece of the pie.
But how true is it? And how much would they lose?

Talk of losing $20 million is wide of the mark. If the current estimates of the profit pool for the teams is true it is possibly $900 million.
So each percent is about 9 million give or take some because there is a two list convoluted system for working out the payments.
In general, the winning team ends up with about 14% of the pool, the tenth team with about 6%. How would that work out for 11 teams.
Probably something like this: (Assuming a pool of 900 million)

1st 14% or $126 million
2nd 12.5% or$112.5 million
3rd 11,0% or $99 million
4th 10% or $90 million
5th 9% or $81 million
6th 8,5% or $76.5 million
7th 8% or $72 million
8th 7.5% or $67.5 million
9th 7% or $63 million
10th 6.5% or $58.5 million
11th 6% or $54 million

It is easy to see that if the 11th team got what it is getting under a ten-team spread then it loses nothing. No disadvantage financially at all. If Andretti or another 11th team was last, then the tenth team would be $4,5 million better off!
Half a percent is worth 4.5 million while a full percent is worth 9 million.

So the amounts of a 20 million difference for lower teams are just speculation and nothing meaningful really. There can't be or there would have to be a pool of $2 billion to spread around and that isn't true at all.
The most all the ten teams would lose would be an average of $5.4 million and some teams could actually be better off in the lower end if they were more competitive than Andretti.
So why is there even a $200 million fund required? if the lower teams aren't actually worse off, then it is meaningless.
If F1 is a meritocracy it is incumbent on the lower teams to lift their game and get on with it. They shouldn't be spending 150 million a year for no real advance in competitiveness, which means someone isn't doing as well as they should be.

If it is possible to run an Indycar or a WEC GTP for a fraction of F1's cost, then spending 150 million a year to be a perennial back marker is a waste of money and an inefficient use of capital. Let someone else have a go.

But don't sit there and embark on straw man arguments to hold others out from having a go. That is not in the competitive ethos of F1.

[P38 in workshop]

^ An excellent post.^

[Tourer]

Tripped over this interview with Michael Andretti on the Bloomberg channel on YouTube. Worth watching - only about 25 minutes or so long. Interesting as it is of course put together from an understandably US perspective, where Andretti is a much bigger name and bigger deal than elsewhere.

[GTRMagic]

How’s the IndyCar deal going, pulling back to 3 cars..

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

How’s the IndyCar deal going, pulling back to 3 cars..

3 cars next year.



https://racer.com/2023/11/13/andrett...ries-for-2024/

[Mike Harte]

And General Motors registers to enter as an F1 engine manufacturer from 2028. See: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/g...2028/10546412/

[chillibowl]

thats pretty excellent news and certainly boosts the Andretti bid imo. earlier had criticized GM's potential involvement as simply a badge/branding exercise and, being honest, that for sure clouded my impression of the Andretti bid overall.

this announcement changes that! will of course wait to see what ultimately happens, but for right now, way to step up GM!

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

And General Motors registers to enter as an F1 engine manufacturer from 2028. See: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/g...2028/10546412/

Thanks for that Mike - it’s certainly getting more “real” now! Probably a smart move to bring in the Caddy power unit in 2028 - gives Andretti a couple of seasons to get chassis design/build/tuning under control, with a known power unit before going down the GM route.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

And General Motors registers to enter as an F1 engine manufacturer from 2028. See: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/g...2028/10546412/

That is quite significant and I think a real boost for Andretti. I think it is probably getting much harder to justify turning Andretti and GM away at this point.

Originally Posted by Tourer

Interesting as it is of course put together from an understandably US perspective, where Andretti is a much bigger name and bigger deal than elsewhere.

When reading this the other day, I had the realization (having grown up in the US) that maybe Andretti is not as well known Globally as I had assumed.

I suspect that if you presented a list of famous "family names" that are associated with motorsports, that the average US citizen might list Ferrari first and Andretti would be in the top five and could easily be second or third. Other names (not in F1) that would be in the top five would be something like Ford. Even if you don't care about or follow motorsports, here in the US, you probably recognize the Andretti name and that is it about "racing". Andretti as a brand, in the US, will probably have more name recognition than teams like Williams, McLaren, Audi, Alfa Romeo. Teams like Haas, Alpine, and Alpha Tauri would likely have zero recognition. If anything Alpine would be confused with Japanese Electronics manufacture "Alpine". Ferrari, Aston Martin and Mercedes would be known.

Richard

[Mike Harte]

As far as F1 goes, I expect that only old farts like myself would realise that Mario had won a WDC, because it was so long ago.

I would like to think that the McLaren name still resonates in the States considering they pretty well dominated for a time in Can-Am , only equalled by Lola in the number of championship winning models.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

And General Motors registers to enter as an F1 engine manufacturer from 2028. See: https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/g...2028/10546412/

The article says: ''GM has revealed that development and testing of "prototype technology" has already begun as it envisages using F1 to boost its understanding of electrification, hybridisation, sustainable fuels, high-efficiency internal combustion engines and software.''

I wonder if this is being done in conjunction with Ilmor, who design Chevrolet's IndyCar engine, which has recently under gone further testing of the hybrid assist program at IMS?

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Richard C

I had the realization (having grown up in the US) that maybe Andretti is not as well known Globally as I had assumed.

I suspect that if you presented a list of famous "family names" that are associated with motorsports, that the average US citizen might list Ferrari first and Andretti would be in the top five and could easily be second or third. Other names (not in F1) that would be in the top five would be something like Ford. Even if you don't care about or follow motorsports, here in the US, you probably recognize the Andretti name and that is it about "racing".

Don't doubt you Richard - & I think that is both a help and a hindrance for Andretti's bid. Andretti can argue that F1 can benefit in the US due to having the Andretti "brand" part of it - but outside of the US, whilst there'd be some awareness of Andretti as a brand, it would be minuscule in comparison to how it is known in the US and the group of people and companies that need the most convincing are all outside the US.

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

As far as F1 goes, I expect that only old farts like myself would realise that Mario had won a WDC, because it was so long ago.

I would like to think that the McLaren name still resonates in the States considering they pretty well dominated for a time in Can-Am , only equalled by Lola in the number of championship winning models.

Agree - it was actually a little strange watching that YouTube vid that I linked where Michael at one point said something like Mario winning the WDC was what started interest in F! in the US, or Mario was the first from the US to taste success - something like that - I was thinking that Phil Hill and Dan Gurney, as good examples, might have a different view were they alive to express it!

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

I wonder if this is being done in conjunction with Ilmor, who design Chevrolet's IndyCar engine, which has recently under gone further testing of the hybrid assist program at IMS?

They'd have to be crazy if they didn't do that. Assuming that Ilmor does the work for GM, we could have the "old" Ilmor (Mercedes-Benz powertrains) and the "new" Ilmor competing against each other - intriguing.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

I would like to think that the McLaren name still resonates in the States considering they pretty well dominated for a time in Can-Am , only equalled by Lola in the number of championship winning models.

You would hope. I know of Can-Am as I appreciate that era in prototype racing history, but even then, that series was gone before I started paying attention. And I am in my late 50's. I expect most anyone new has zero clue. Any "McLaren" would come from recent Indycar/500 experience and/or road car/supercar name recognition.

Richard

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by Richard C

You would hope. I know of Can-Am as I appreciate that era in prototype racing history, but even then, that series was gone before I started paying attention. And I am in my late 50's. I expect most anyone new has zero clue. Any "McLaren" would come from recent Indycar/500 experience and/or road car/supercar name recognition.

Richard

Absolutely correct Richard.
Only those alive in 66-72 would remember anything about Can Am and while some enthusiasts may know something of the history of US motorsport unless you were there, the average US citizen has no memory of sports car racing 50 or 60 years ago.

[GTRMagic]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

3 cars next year.



https://racer.com/2023/11/13/andrett...ries-for-2024/

That’s the point.
It’s not a great display of prowess to contract rather than expand is it?
Waxing lyrical about why Penske did it, when those cars are not likely fully commercially funded racers doesn’t inspire confidence in being able to run an F1 team likely needing at least $200m a year plus capital plus dilution fee.

Or am I missing something

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

That’s the point.
It’s not a great display of prowess to contract rather than expand is it?
Waxing lyrical about why Penske did it, when those cars are not likely fully commercially funded racers doesn’t inspire confidence in being able to run an F1 team likely needing at least $200m a year plus capital plus dilution fee.

Or am I missing something

I think maybe you are trying to make to much out of it, or maybe infer too much as to the F1 entry?

I mean, sure Andretti would love to be setting the world on fire in Indycar. The same could be said for a number of F1 teams. I mean if we want to pick and choose various statistics, lets look at Ferrari. Last WDC in 2007 and last WCC in 2008. They clearly should just pack it in as they clearly are not getting the job done. Andretti has won Indy 500 as recent as 2017 and the championship in 2012. Clearly Andretti is doing better than Ferrari. Maybe Ferrari should be removed from the F1 championship to make room for a much better organization like Andretti. I say this tongue in cheek, but the point is you can knock anyone about if they are not currently winning. And it ends up being a poor argument for F1 inclusion (or not).

I don't follow Indycar much at all, but I think the ability to shrink or grow teams is a fantastic capability within Indycar. If you look at the 2023 season you will see teams running running any number of cars including partial programs. With Andretti on the high side of four full season cars. The flip side of this is lots of pay drivers in those extra cars. From reading the article, it sounds like Andretti has recently been running a pay driver in a fourth car to bring funding to the team. But that is just not going to work for 2024. I suspect they could have run a fourth car all season, but maybe nobody was willing to pay what Andretti wanted/needed? And then you have Penske who is doing well and just just runs three. Maybe four is too many and maybe can distract your team? Maybe moving to three cars is a good thing? I feels like it is just grasping for reasons to knock Andretti. Reasons that can be easily applied to just about anyone but the very tip top of any series.

Richard

[chillibowl]

but is that the problem, for lack of a better phrase, with promotion?

of course there is no clear ladder in motorsports (despite F1 thinking it is the top of the ladder), there probably still is this expectation that if you are moving to another category, that it should be coming off of very recent and major successes in the category you are moving up from.

if it was a Chip Ganassi or Penske (potentially with some of their current drivers even) looking to cross over, would the narrative be different? would the existing F1 teams be able to be as dismissive?

*i also dont follow much indy but those are the dominant teams as of late i think?

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

but is that the problem, for lack of a better phrase, with promotion?

of course there is no clear ladder in motorsports (despite F1 thinking it is the top of the ladder), there probably still is this expectation that if you are moving to another category, that it should be coming off of very recent and major successes in the category you are moving up from.

if it was a Chip Ganassi or Penske (potentially with some of their current drivers even) looking to cross over, would the narrative be different? would the existing F1 teams be able to be as dismissive?

*i also dont follow much indy but those are the dominant teams as of late i think?

I think there are many factors in creating positive arguments (or a story) for getting an entry into F1 (or any series). Your recent performance on track is one of them. So if you are a top (or "the" top) team in a large series such as Indycar, then it does strengthen your position. But being as the top should not be a requirement, because it can't be an accurate measure of success in a new series. And what exactly is "success". It can't be limited to being WCC in F1 because each year there is only one team who would be successful and the rest are failures. It can't be that black and white. Go back to my Ferrari example. Even better yet, look at how McLaren has struggled in Indycar in recent years. They were absolute clowns at 2019 Indy 500. So performance in one series may not be an indicator of performance in another.

In short, if Andretti was doing better in Indycar it would strengthen their position. But I think the initial point that GTRMagic was making was that Andretti moving from four to three cars is maybe an indication of their ability (or inability) to get sponsorship and therefore it puts into question their ability to jump through the financial hoops for F1. My only comment there is that they seem to have shown FIA that they can swing all of this (including the $200M fee). Not to mention they are bringing a huge sponsor (and now engine supplier) to the series. So they seem to be able to get sponsorship.

Richard

[Richard C]

I am not big on memes, but I saw this on Reddit and for me, it defines the situation for Andretti. That the bar is raised as an excuse to say "no"



What is also rough for Andretti, is even if they get in, there is close to zero chance they will be competitive in the short term. It will take them years to even get to the top of the mid-field if they are even able to do that. But it doesn't make them any less of a competitor like the rest of the F1 field. But people will claim that because Andretti didn't show up and do something magical in their first season, that it proves they were not worthy or something to that effect.

Richard

(PS: Apologies if the language in the image is overly crude)