- Michael Andretti has been pushing for a chance to bring his family's name back to Formula One.
- He has partnered with the owners of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who would pay the $200 million expansion fee.
In the same year that Formula One will have an American driver back to the grid, Michael Andretti is still hoping to bring his family name back to the sport — and it might have more legs than it seemed in recent months.
This week, Andretti Global broke ground on its new home just outside Indianapolis, for Andretti Autosport's IndyCar team, and whatever future motorsports teams they will own. That would include an F1 team if Andretti's dream of buying an expansion franchise comes true.
The last time we saw Andretti making a splash in the F1 world, he was working the paddock area at the inaugural Miami Grand Prix, hoping to drum up support for his bid to purchase a new team.
At the time, it felt like Andretti's hopes were dying as several F1 team principals expressed opposition to expansion and dividing the revenue pie 11 ways without guaranteeing the pie would get bigger. Among those against Andretti's bid was Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, one of the more powerful voices in the sport.
"Andretti is a great name, they have done exceptional things in the US, but this is sport, and this is business," Wolff said in August. "We have 10 franchises that we hope can increase the value, and you are certainly not going to increase the value by issuing new franchises to people who cannot increase the overall value of Formula One."
Since Miami, Andretti and his father, former F1 champion Mario Andretti, have been relatively quiet on the topic. Some interpreted this as a sign that they were giving up on joining F1 anytime soon. However, at the groundbreaking this week, the pair sounded more optimistic.
After dismissing the idea of talks with Red Bull to buy their sister-team, AlphaTauri, Andretti said there is more going on behind the scenes than most realize.
"We're working every day [to earn clearance for an expansion team]," Andretti told the Indianapolis Star. "I'm still confident. We're getting close. We haven't gotten the 'OK' yet, but we're getting really close ... We're hoping [to find out] in the next couple weeks. That would sure be a nice Christmas present."
In addition, Dan Towriss — the CEO for Group 1001, the owner of Gainbridge (one of Andretti's biggest sponsors), and one of the investors in Andretti's F1 bid — offered some insight into why we haven't heard much from Andretti in recent months.
"There's a lot of conversations going on, and we're not trying to get out in front of anything or use the media as a tool to influence anything," Towriss said. "They have an expectation on approach and decorum that people should take in dealing with them, and we respect that."
In other words, F1 wants the game played a certain way, and if Andretti is still playing, it suggests that the hopes of an Andretti expansion team are still very much alive.
The name writing the checks might be more important than Andretti
At the beginning of the groundbreaking ceremony, Michael Andretti thanked several people, including Mark Walter, the CEO of Guggenheim Partners, a group that was part of the purchase of MLB's Los Angeles Dodgers — as Guggenheim Baseball Management — and Chelsea FC of the Premier League.
According to Nathan Brown of the Indianapolis Star, this was significant as it was the first time that Andretti publicly acknowledged the involvement of Guggenheim, which has long been rumored to be the money behind Andretti Global's new facility. They are also believed to be the group that would write the checks for the $200 million F1 expansion fee and the estimated $1 billion it is expected to cost for the launch of a new team.
Before Andretti hoped to land an F1 expansion team, he was close to acquiring current team Alfa Romeo. There was some speculation that Andretti did not have enough money for the deal, and he vehemently denied that at the time.
"No, 1,000% no, that's not what happened," Andretti told The Associated Press. "It fell apart because all of a sudden, they changed the terms, and they wanted to control everything. They wanted veto power on every decision. They changed that two days before the deal was supposed to be signed. So I don't give a crap what anyone says, we were never going to do a deal in which we bought the team but didn't have control of the team."
This indicated that Andretti must have some deep pockets in his corner. Guggenheim and Walter, who has an estimated net worth of $5.3 billion, according to Forbes, would certainly fit the description and might even get F1's attention more than the name Andretti.