The FIA only granted permission to Andretti Global, a teaming up with automobile manufacturer General Motors through its Cadillac brand, to compete in Formula One.
Colton Herta, a star in the IndyCar series, is in line to join Michael Andretti’s Formula 1 team if his application is approved.
The FIA spent months examining a number of applications to establish new Formula One teams before approving only the American’s proposal. President Mohammed ben Sulayem felt he could not reject the Andretti bid, which was made in collaboration with the automaker General Motors, even though the majority of them were rejected by the governing body.
The ability of an 11th team to join the grid, however, is still in some doubt. The 10 current teams continue to oppose a new entry strongly, and Formula One Management (FOM) still has the final say regarding who can compete in the world championship.
But Andretti, speaking to Sky Sports at the United States Grand Prix, remains confident of being given the green light. “We’re very, very excited. Thank you to the president of the FIA for putting the Expressions of Interest [process] out there. It was very rigorous, a very tough thing to go through for our team,” he said.
“I’m proud to say we came out on top in every category and we’re very proud of that. It shows that we have the right to be here on the grid. We’re also really excited about the fan support – it’s been overwhelming and I want to thank everyone out there, it means a lot. We’re very excited about the future and we think we have something to offer to Formula 1 fans.
We don’t give up – I never give up. [F1] is the top of racing and this has been our whole life. We want to go out there and prove that we can race with the best in the world. That’s why we’re here. We’re still shooting [to enter in] ’25. Our car is going to be in the wind tunnel next week, we have a car already built up in ’23 spec. At the moment it’s ’25, it could be ’26, we’ll see.”
The American, himself a former F1 racer was reluctant to give much away when quizzed on who might drive for his team, initially responding: “Stay tuned.” But when pressed on the matter he did reveal that IndyCar racer Colton Herta, who was turned down for an AlphaTauri seat for this year because he does not have enough superlicence points, is a prime candidate.
Colton is unquestionably at the top of our list, but given his points issue, we’ll have to wait and see how he performs in the IndyCar series in order to see if he can earn enough points to qualify for a superlicense. We’ve also spoken with a few others who do meet the criteria. The intention is to have an experienced driver in one car and at least one American in the other to serve as mentors.
Andretti appeared confident that a deal can be reached with the French company, despite the fact that the pre-contract agreement he had with engine supplier Alpine has expired. Technically, the agreement was sent out, but that will be fixed as soon as we give our approval. We aren’t .