New Andretti Squad Experiences Resistance From Other F1 Teams

Michael Andretti - who is hoping that his F1 team will make a mark in 2025, having recently received approval - has explained that he believes that many in Formula 1 see his team as “a bunch of hillbillies” and he has expressed surprise at the lack of support he is currently receiving. To be allowed into F1, the American needs to say yes to a variety of conditions with FOM, and this is not guaranteed.

Currently, a lot of the key players in FOM are unsure about having another team added, and it’s likely that Andretti could experience some pushback. Plus, with a lot of F1’s competitors against Andretti being welcomed into the fold, it’s unclear as to whether his team will succeed. This is largely linked to competitors fearing that they will miss out on income if Andretti’s team joins, as well as there being a risk that the value of their businesses will fall.

Andretti Speaks Out Against F1 Resistance

On YouTube, Andretti spoke out, highlighting how shocked is by the amount of people in F1 who are against his plans. He believes they assume that his team is not cut out for the challenge. Andretti said: "It's just the way it is, and we'll just deal with it. I didn't think it would be this hard to get in. But we'll prove our weight to get in. First of all, they think that we're a bunch of hillbillies over here, and we don't know what we're doing. Because we have a lot of experience in racing, we might come at it from a different angle than everybody else, and it might work."

He went on to explain that he doesn’t agree with this, arguing that adding the Andretti team to the grid could actually help the championship to grow. He believes that adding more cars will help the sport to grow, and that his team will bring more to F1 than what it would take away. Andretti believes this has a lot to do with how they are approaching things, which he views as being the opposite of what Haas did, as it relied on having a connection to Ferrari.

Andretti stated: "They had no infrastructure, they couldn't build their own car. They are mini Ferraris, because they just buy everything as much as they can from Ferrari and even have Ferrari engineers. Getting cars on the track is probably the easiest part.”

The Andretti F1 team is building their own cars, which he sees as a big undertaking, explaining “in IndyCar you buy the car and you're in the ballpark right away and in F1, you're literally building a car from scratch."

If given the go ahead for F1, Andretti believes that his team have the resources, skill, capability and industry support to be successful.

"We're still not there yet, but we feel like we have a fantastic plan. We have GM and Cadillac behind us, which is huge. I think we have all the ingredients to be a competitive team one day and then hopefully we can come to terms with Formula 1 to be able to be there.”

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