F1 Sale News: Rival team boss hints at Andretti SALE

Michael Andretti, Andretti, 2023, Social Composite — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News & Gossip

Rival team boss hints at Andretti SALE over F1 sale

Andretti are attempting to get into F1

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Tuesday 4 June 2024 05:00

McLaren Formula 1 boss Zak Brown has offered some words of advice for Andretti Global as they seek to enter the sport.

Andretti's recent bid to become the 11th team on the grid fell by the wayside, when Formula One Management (FOM) decided that they would not bring enough value to the sport.

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Concerns from Liberty Media and various teams up and down the paddock meant that their bid did not succeed for 2026, despite having been given the green light by the FIA.

Nevertheless, Andretti - who are owned by former F1 driver Michael Andretti - are pushing on in the hopes of entering the sport in 2028, or even further down the line.

Andretti are finding it difficult to break into F1

When will Andretti join F1?

They hope to one day become the 11th team on the grid, with the help of General Motors, who have agreed to supply their power units from 2028 as part of the bid.

However, Brown believes that they would have more chance of joining F1 if they bought out a current team, suggesting that a potential sale of one of the current outfits could be on the cards.

“That would certainly be the easiest thing to do,” Brown told ESPN. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone who wants to sell at the moment. But that being said, it just means the offer needs to be bigger.

"No-one has a ‘for sale’ sign from what I can see on their front door, [but] there’s always a number.

"These franchise values, I think Williams was bought for $150 million, I don’t think five years later you can buy that team for less than a billion and a half. The value creation has been immense.

“Historically in Formula 1, it was enter, show up and the sport didn’t care if you didn’t make it halfway through a year,” he recalled. “So in the past you had Lola start a team and go bust after three races.

“Previously there was always a team going bust next year. Now you have over half the grid is profitable.

"Liberty is now in a position where you’ve got ten very healthy teams. So they’re going to hold an 11th and 12th team to the extreme highest criteria and extreme due diligence - which I think is right."

FIA Zak Brown Andretti Global General Motors Liberty Media Michael Andretti