While fans of the F1 have been excited to hear that a new team in the shape of the Andretti-Cadillac partnership could be entering the sport, it sounds as though things on the other side of the pit wall aren’t as positive.
According to recent reports, a “strong majority” of the grid are against this move, with the FIA president Ben Sulayem himself admitting this on Twitter.
Obviously, F1 as a sport has seen huge expansion in recent years partly due to the rise of Netflix’s Drive to Survive. The United States has been a large part of this with 2022 being collecting record viewership in the country – up 28 percent from 2021 with an average of 1.21 million viewers per race.
Taking this into account, it’s no surprise that US companies are now looking at the sport with dollar signs reflected in their eyes, and Andretti and General Motors’ recent interest is no different. Of course, as fans, we see nothing wrong with this, but let’s explore why those within the sport aren’t happy with this potential decision.
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According to Reuters, a “senior team figure”, which many rumour to be Toto Wolff, has admitted that a “strong majority” of the grid don’t want new teams joining due to this reducing the revenues of current teams involved.
Currently, F1 does have a system in place to counter this: when a new team enters, they have to pay $200 million in fees which gets shared out between teams as compensation. But according to Reuters, this huge fee isn’t enough to make teams happy.
On top of this, the media site suggests that Cadillac won’t bring full commitment as a manufacturer to the sport, instead lowering their responsibility to that of a “badging exercise”.
Does this make a difference?
This is all well and good, but do complaints from the grid make a lick of difference to the choices made? Yes, of course it does. But ultimately, the power is in the hands of the F1 and the FIA who can only see this as necessary expansion.
Intensions from Andretti-Cadillac seem true, and this won’t be the last we’ll see of such a scenario. Only days ago we heard news that the Asian Panthera Team is looking to also gain entrance to the sport. So with so much interest, team leaders may have to get used to the idea.
