05/12/2022
NEWS STORY
Despite opposition from the sport's powers that be, Michael Andretti insists that he is "not giving up" on his dream of entering F1.
He was speaking at a press conference to mark the recruitment of Jamie Chadwick, who becomes the first female in 13 years to compete full-time in the Indy NXT championship.
Her signing comes at a time F1 has announced its support for F1 Academy, an all-women series which will be run by a number of the current F2 and F3 teams, with the aim of developing and preparing "young" female drivers to higher levels of competition.
Like Chadwick, Andretti has his eyes set on entering F1, but thus far with little success having encountered opposition and negativity from the likes of F1 CEO, Stefano Domenicali and team bosses such as Toto Wolff.
Thwarted in his efforts to buy into Sauber, which has now been snapped up by Audi, Andretti insists that his desire to enter F1 is as strong as ever, to the extent that a new $200m (£170m) facility is being built in Indiana, with a groundbreaking ceremony set to take place next week.
"We're still moving forward," said Andretti when asked about his F1 plans.
"We're still working hard," he added. "I think we made pretty good progress in the last couple of months and we're not giving up."
Asked about the new facility, which would house all his racing operations, with a day-to-day satellite operation in Europe for F1, Andretti replied: "We're really excited about it, it's going to be awesome."