17/09/2023
NEWS STORY
Even as the FIA prepares to give the green light to the Andretti Group's bid to enter the sport, the teams - and F1 itself - remain opposed to the idea.
Though arguably one of the most famous names in global motorsport, and therefore one that F1 should presumably welcome with open arms, from the outset the sport's owners and the majority of the teams have opposed the idea citing every possible excuse including money, safety, logistics and that old chestnut, the sport's DNA.
As the FIA prepares to rubber stamp the American team's bid, opinion hasn't changed... with money - as ever – the key factor.
"I haven't heard anything that it was accepted or not accepted," said Guenther Steiner. "I don't know and I'm sure Stefano (Domenicali) knows how to deal with this in our best interest.
"We put our faith in FOM to deal with it," he continued, "the teams are worth now a lot more than when we're deciding the Concorde agreement in 2020, where some teams we're struggling to stay in business, and were worth basically nothing, so the market has changed, but in the end, I don't have any news about it so I just wait to hear and then F1 will do the deal for us."
"Formula 1, and the team have survived in the last years is because we all stuck together," said Toto Wolff, "the FIA, FOM and the 10 teams.
"We need to protect the sport, we are holding this sensitive sport that's growing at the moment in our hands and that's why the right decisions need to be taken, all of us together when it comes to - let's say - a mind-set and then obviously the FIA and FOM, when it comes to these decisions, because it's out of the teams' hands.
"I would hope that Mohammed Ben Sulayem and Stefano will take the right decisions for Formula 1."
"Any new team must bring an added value to the entire F1 community and so it needs to be a solid project," added Alessandro Alunni Bravi, "not just for five years' period, but must be a really long term project.
"We are a strong foundation and of course, it needs to recognise any new entry, the value and all the investment that has been done by the current teams.
"As Toto mentioned, the worth of the current teams has grown up significantly in the past few years. We need to protect our business but we rely on the FIA and FOM to take the right decision.
"We will be ready to welcome any new teams that has this kind of characteristic. But we need first to also understand what is the best for the entire F1 community with a long term perspective."
Along with Alpine, McLaren has been the only team so far to actually support Andretti's bid, but even Zak Brown appears to be wavering.
"I've not heard anything new," he said. "It's not been spoken about so I think our view's unchanged and (we're) just going to wait and see how the process plays out.
"I think the one thing I would say is the value of a Formula 1 team and an entry, from what it was five years ago is... the sport is worth substantially more so I think that that element needs to be discussed. But beyond that, I'm not sitting on any new information that I hadn't heard months ago and just going to wait and see what the FIA and Formula 1 do."
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