FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has backflipped on his backing of Michael Andretti’s Formula 1 bid, telling him to buy an existing team rather than attempt to enter as a new constructor.
Ben Sulayem’s sudden intervention is a break from his previous advocacy for Andretti and technical partner General Motors entering as an 11th team and deprives the American entity of its most powerful ally.
Speaking to Reuters, Ben Sulayem said F1 would derive greater benefit from Andretti revitalising an existing team rather than starting from scratch.
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“I have no doubt FOM (Formula 1 Management) and Liberty would love to see other teams as long as they are OEMs (automotive manufacturers),” he said.
“I would advise them to go and buy another team, not to come as the 11th team.
“I feel that some teams need to be refreshed. What is better? To have 11 teams as a number or 10 and they are strong?
“I still believe we should have more teams but not any teams. The right teams.
“It’s not about the number, it’s about the quality.
“Without mentioning names, there are teams which are struggling — struggling with performance, struggling even with management.”
He reiterated, however, that he wanted to see more American presence in the sport.
“It’s about having the right team, not to lose a chance or an opportunity where someone like GM with a PU is coming to Formula 1.
“Imagine the impact. We have three races in America. We have such a huge fan base. But we don’t have a proper [American] team.
“I’m so happy to have Ford in [as Red Bull’s power unit partner], but imagine having GM and imagine having American drivers.”
The reference to OEMs echoes FOM’s preference to expand the grid only for automotive manufacturers.
FOM hinted in its rejection letter that it could reconsider Andretti’s bid ahead of 2028, when General Motors intends to start building its own F1 power units for the American racing mogul.
Andretti has intended to race with customer engines before that date.
Ben Sulayem’s new position is the latest twist in the protracted saga, which has escalated dramatically this month.
US legislators have referred Formula 1 to domestic antitrust authorities on suspicions of anti-competitive behaviour in rejecting Andretti’s entry.
Mario Andretti, the 1978 world champion and Michael Andretti’s father, subsequently claimed that Liberty Media CEO Greg Maffei had personally committed himself to derailing the bid.
The FIA president had been Andretti’s biggest public backer from the moment it became clear the American racing mogul had an interest in competing in Formula 1.
He subsequently opened expressions of interest for new teams despite both FOM and most of the existing 10 teams being opposed to expanding the grid.
Andretti Global was the only business to win the FIA’s tick of approval based on its technical and financial competency.
But FOM must also approve any new entry on commercial considerations, and in January it rejected Andretti’s bid to join.
Andretti Global’s F1 aspirations had become a major point of friction between FIA and FOM since last year, with Ben Sulayem periodically ramping up pressure on the Liberty Media-owned business to come to the same conclusion as the governing body and open its doors to the American team.
But the Emirati motorsport boss now appears to be singing from same hymn sheet.
His desertion of the Andretti bid follows renewed peace talks between the FIA and FOM after years of disquiet under his administration.
In a joint statement released on the FIA website earlier this month, the FIA said that F1 “has never been so strong and is growing globally, and the FIA and Formula 1 are committed to delivering the best outcomes for the whole sport.
“To that end both parties are developing a new strategic plan that will allow us to seize the opportunities and further enhance the potential for F1 in the years ahead.”
Andretti does not appear to form part of those plans.
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‘BULLET THROUGH MY HEART’
Ben Sulayem’s backflip will have no immediate material impact on Andretti Global, with the FIA having already approved it to enter the sport late last year.
It would be a deeply frustrating development for Michael Andretti nonetheless.
Andretti originally attempted to buy his way into the sport in 2021, when he got close to buying a stake in the Sauber team before talks collapsed.
His undimmed determination to enter the sport formed part of Ben Sulayem’s motivation to open expressions of interests for new teams, a process he appears to be now distancing himself from.
It was partly based on the FIA’s approval that Andretti has continued building up his would-be team despite not having an entry to the grid.
Just this month he hired the super experienced Pat Fry to become the team’s executive engineering consultant. The signing is something of a coup given Fry is defecting from FOM, which remains opposed to Andretti’s bid to join the sport as a new team.
In April Andretti cut the ribbon on his new Formula 1 headquarters near Silverstone, where the business will house its F1 design office and race team, claiming that he was still talking to FOM in the hope of winning it over.
“I think once everybody understands what we are really putting together it’ll be a point where they can’t say no,” he told Sky Sports at the time.
But the significant statements of intent appear to have done little to warm FOM to the idea.
Earlier this month Mario Andretti claimed that Greg Maffei, the CEO of F1 owner Liberty Media, told him at a private F1-organised function that he would personally intervene to keep Andretti Global off the grid.
“Just as I was trying to explain that to Stefano, Greg Maffei, Mr Maffei, broke in the conversation and he said, ‘Mario, I want to tell you that I will do everything in my power to see that Michael never enters Formula 1’,” he told NBC.
“That one really floored me.
“We’re talking about business. I didn’t know it was something so personal. That was really — oh, my goodness. I could not believe it. It was just like a bullet through my heart.”
The function came after Mario Andretti appeared in Washington, DC, with legislators calling for more transparency over FOM’s approval process, something he says was organised by politicians, not the Andretti family.
‘IF THEY WANT BLOOD, I’M READY’
Mario, the patriarch of the Andretti family and regularly deployed as the bid’s public face given his championship-winning status, has grown increasingly angered by F1’s stubborn refusal to entertain his son’s team.
He took particular exception to reports that Formula 1 was attempting to woo General Motors to enter the sport as an engine manufacturer without Andretti attached.
“That’s another offensive statement there,” he said, per NBC. “How are you going to take them?
“We’re the ones that worked it out, and GM said it over and over — ‘Andretti or nothing’ — and then they still tried to take it.
“I don’t know. There’s an undercurrent there that I don’t understand quite honestly.
“But if they want blood, well, I’m ready.”
The frustration could only have been ramped up by Ben Sulayem’s updated advice to buy a team.
While Andretti Global building up its forces wouldn’t preclude it from taking over an existing team, none is publicly for sale and few are said to be so much as informally open to discussions about a change of ownership.
In fact Andretti’s first instinct was to buy his way in. Talks to purchase a stake in Sauber were well advanced when they collapsed suddenly at the end of 2021 over what Michael Andretti described as issues of control.
Sauber subsequently agreed to be acquired by Audi the following year.
Of the current 10 teams, only Alpine, Haas and RB could be possible candidates, but none would appear likely to sell.
Alpine is perhaps the most likely, but the team denied rumours earlier this year that parent company Renault had run out of enthusiasm for Formula 1 following the team’s horror start to the year.
Gene Haas’s commitment to Formula 1 appears redoubled with new team principal Ayao Komatsu at the helm and with his relationship with Ferrari set to net him highly rated young gun Oliver Bearman next season.
RB looked in jeopardy following the death of Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz in 2022, but it has since had its future secured by the ugly but lucrative rebranding with major sponsors Visa and CashApp.
Team valuations are also sky-high, thanks in part to the extremely high bar for entry.
Last year the sale of a minority stake in Aston Martin valued the team at $1.85 billion. Alpine has been valued at a similarly eye-watering $1.36 billion.
With F1 still booming, team valuations will only keep climbing.
F1, a closed shop, is not a buyers market.
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A NEW ERA OF PEACE
While Ben Sulayem’s slide away from Andretti’s bid will be a blow to the American business, it will be viewed as a step in the right direction by FOM and the exiting teams.
The 2024 season had been set up for internecine war between the FIA and FOM, with negotiations over the next Concorde agreement — the commercial and governance document that binds the FIA, FOM and the team together — ramping up ahead of implementation in 2026.
The FIA under Ben Sulayem has been keen to flex its regulatory muscle as the ultimate owner of Formula 1. FOM, under Liberty Media, has been impatient to modernise the sport to continue its rapid growth.
They haven’t always seen eye to eye, with teams and F1 reportedly seeing Ben Sulayem as too willing to micromanage the sport despite his far broader motorsport remit.
Undertakings by the president to step back from F1 at the beginning of last year following a series of controversies have seen little practical change in the paddock.
Often the conflict has spilt over into proxy battles.
As just one example, late last year the FIA suddenly opened an investigation into Toto and Susie Wolff over allegations of conflict of interest and improper sharing of information supposedly raised by a rival team principal.
Mercedes and the Wolff family strongly denied the allegations, and when all nine teams backed them and denied lodging complaints, the FIA was forced to embarrassingly back down after less than 48 hours.
The governing body faces legal action launched by Susie Wolff over the saga.
But the FIA is striking a more conciliatory tone this year, saying via its website that it would be working more closely with FOM to jointly set the direction of the sport.
Speaking to Reuters, Ben Sulayem said it was important to get the FIA and FOM back on the same page.
“Peace is always good,” he said. “You can’t have all the time unnecessary issues.
“We both understand that we need to go forward and the only way to go forward is to have much more clarity between us. We are on the same boat regardless, and what we want is sustainability of the business.
“We are with FOM when it comes to business. We are the partners, and we have to also forget the small things and find a solution how can we address these issues.”
It might be that Andretti Global has become the first casualty of this new peace.
