Andretti F1 Bid Gets Political

The Andretti F1 bid has gotten political as American politicians have begun questioning why Andretti Global was not granted an F1 grid slot. I have the details this week. I also have Roger Penske’s reaction to the Team Penske P2P scandal, Formula E’s growth plans and possible new manufacturers in MotoGP. It’s all part of this week’s Business of Motorsport Roundup on Motorsport Prospects.

Motorsport Industry News

Formula 1

Mario Andretti at Capitol Hill

The Andretti Global F1 bid took a decidedly political turn as I mentioned last week and now the heat is being raised further following Mario Andretti’s appearance on Capitol Hill. After the Miami Grand Prix, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan has sent a letter to Liberty Media president and CEO Greg Maffei and F1 president and CEO Stefano Domenicali, demanding answers as to why the Andretti bid was rejected.

“The excuses put forward for denying Andretti Cadillac’s entry appear to be pretextual, arbitrary, and unrelated to Andretti Cadillac’s suitability to compete in Formula 1,” Jordan writes in his letter, reported and published by NBC.“

One interesting note can be found in Joe Saward’s recent Green Notebook column about the signatories to that Congressional letter to Liberty.

“If one looks at the 12 signatories it is not hard to see a pattern which relates to Andretti and GM. Four of the dozen come from Indiana, where the Andretti team is based and employs people; three are from Michigan, three from Texas and one from North Carolina, all states where General Motors has a significant presence. I admit I was briefly perplexed by the congressman from Florida who was a signatory but it did not take long to figure out that Andretti’s primary supporter Dan Towriss  (the boss of Gainbridge) is resident in the district that the congressman represents.”

Meanwhile, The Race has a great summary of where Andretti’s F1 bid really stands after the dramatic escalation. Meanwhile, Michael Andretti remains optimistic.

Miami Grand Prix Grid

Despite social media grumblings about a $280 lobster roll, last weekend’s Miami Grand Prix was undeniably a success both on and off the track. With record TV ratings (they even beat NASCAR!) and attendance, the race seems to have hit its stride in year 3. Miami has managed to differentiate itself from the other American races which is important for its long term growth, even with the dominance of Max Verstappen.

“I think the great thing is that Formula 1 not only allows but they encourage us to operate differently. They want us to represent the communities and the cities in which we live. And so the experience in Austin is quite different than the experience here in Miami, which is quite different experience in Vegas. So, credit to Stefano [Domenicali, F1’s CEO] and team for giving us the freedom to execute at that level, so we don’t necessarily feel the competition. In fact, if it’s anything, it’s how do we work together to continue to give this growing US F1 fan base what they want.”

Here is a roundup of some of the coverage.

Liberty Media’s financial results have shown that Formula 1 revenue increased by 45% to over half a billion dollars in Q1 compared to the same period last year. Results released by Liberty Media ahead of its Q1 investor call show that in the three-month period from January-March, F1’s revenue was $553 million, up from $381 million in the same period 12 months prior. Even the dominance of Max Verstappen does not seem to be affecting growth.

Full details can be found here.

With recent financial results showing that F1 is booming and demand for the race series at an all time high, has the series reached capacity yet and is Asia its next growth market?

Oliver Howard: “Despite concerns about reaching capacity, in my opinion, the Asian market presents an exciting opportunity for Formula 1. As the world’s most populous continent, Asia holds significant potential in terms of viewership, sponsorship, and grassroots development.”

Business of Motorsport

In Red Bull news, Red Bull managing director Oliver Mintzlaff has given his first public backing to Formula 1 team boss Christian Horner, insisting he is the right man to bring the squad more success while Ford’s commitment remains unchanged despite Adrian Newey’s departure. “Our focus though fully remains on the power unit programme for 2026. That’s unchanged after this news and that is still going ahead full throttle.”

General Motorsport Industry News

Business of Motorsport

The Push-to-Pass scandal that has engulfed Team Penske in IndyCar is not going away and Roger Penske himself has addressed the issue by suspending a number of senior staff for the month of May. For its part, Chevrolet confirmed that it was not aware of the P2P issue.

ROGER PENSKE: We took several days to review the situation. In fact, our General Counsel did an internal investigation on-site with people that would be involved in this process. And it was determined that the software was installed eight months ago. It was a process failure from the standpoint of the team, and a communication failure from the standpoint of what the drivers understood.

And at this point, we felt that it was obvious that Newgarden didn’t understand what the rules were, and he has taken the penalty. And we felt that the situation on the 3 car was different, because there was no understanding by the engineer, or the driver, of the situation other than it was pushed at one time and never used again.

Roger Penske addresses the push-to-pass scandal

In other IndyCar news, Graham Rahal believes a bigger focus should be put towards fixing the parts shortage issues plaguing the IndyCar paddock before having new teams join the series.

“This isn’t a cold take, but in my opinion, we don’t need new teams right now,” said Rahal. “It’s a great thing to have Prema, which is a very well-known international team. The reality is we need to get what we’ve got right first; we need to be able to supply the teams.”

In NASCAR news, hints that Hyundai could become a new manufacturer in the series have emerged as the series is looking at changes to the rules to allow a France family member to buy into the series. And the fight goes on amongst the series and the teams on the sport’s future.

Michael Jordan’s 23XI Racing team is finding success early into this season, but the Basketball Hall of Famer turned NASCAR owner isn’t happy with the lack of permanent team charters, the sport’s version of franchises. “That’s a big, big miss right there,” Jordan said in an interview with The New York Times. “If you don’t correct that, this sport’s going to die not because of the competition aspect, but because economically it doesn’t make sense for any businesspeople.”

NASCAR and Its Race Teams Fight Over the Sport’s Future – The New York Times
Formula E

In Formula E news, while the series expects to attract more manufacturers to the Gen4 era, they are also contemplating at least two and possibly three races in the United States.

“In addition to potentially staying in Portland or returning to Southern California, Dodds says Formula E has also had conversations with interested parties in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Detroit, Nashville, and Phoenix. And, like F1’s quick growth from just one U.S. race in 2021 to three in ’23, Dodds thinks the U.S. market is big enough for three FE races, too, maybe as soon as ’30.”

Liberty Media’s CEO Greg Maffei says the company had an “outpouring of interest” from numerous parties, including manufacturers, after announcing its buyout of MotoGP.

“So, on MotoGP, after the announcement, we had an outpouring of interest from both potential broadcast partners, OEMs, potential sites, all of which are very interesting,” Maffei said. “Unfortunately, due to the nature of the regulatory process, we will be formulating those amongst ourselves and our plans. But we really can’t reach out and do anything concrete with the MotoGP management team to avoid gun jumping until we have regulatory approval. So, we are conjuring plans. We have some really good ideas, I think, I hope, and we hope to get permission to execute on those sooner rather than later.”

Extensive efforts to refine the Gen3 platform could soon have Supercars revisiting the opportunity to bring in new manufacturers according to V8 Sleuth.

“We hope that we will be through that hurdle in the next months to come, where we can then hand on heart be very proactive in talking to other manufacturers, which will make it cost efficient, turnkey to come in on the product. I think we all would (like to have another manufacturer in the sport). Even Ford has openly said we think it would be the best thing for the sport. So, yes, we would love to.”

The FIA’s first CEO Natalie Robyn is to leave the governing body later this month to pursue opportunities elsewhere. “However, it is understood that a desire to get back to working in the automotive industry has prompted a rethink about her plans and she has reached an agreement with the FIA to depart at the end of this month.”

The Nürburgring Endurance Series (NES) last weekend confirmed the cancellation of its first four-hour race on the eve of the event as the result of a “concerted withdrawal” of 80 marshals.

“During the preparations, the NES organization had received sufficient commitments from marshals and participants so that nothing stood in the way of running the four-hour race on Saturday, 4 May. While the test sessions were still in progress, 80 marshals cancelled their participation within a very short period of time on Friday at lunchtime.”

“Although the majority of the marshals would have been available to work around the 24.358 kilometres long track configuration of Nordschleife and sprint circuit and a reserve of marshals was also available, the cancellation meant that the total number of remaining marshals was not sufficient to safeguard the race track in accordance with the requirements.”

Motorsport Australia remains committed to its much-vaunted Home of Motorsport project at Avalon despite missing out on funding in the Victorian state budget.

“So, it’s not unexpected. We’ve been working with the minister [Steve Dimopolous, Tourism/Sport/Major Events], his department around both leading up to the budget announcement and very much with a view to the next 12 months about continuing progress with the investment case.”

Quick Takes on the Business of Motorsport This Week

Business of Motorsport

Motorsport Law Roundup

A look at some of the legal and regulatory issues and analysis in Motorsport this week

Aston Martin’s petition for a right to review the penalty given to Fernando Alonso in the Sprint at the Chinese Grand Prix has been rejected.

The hearing took place via videoconference on (last) Friday morning as it involved stewards from the previous race who are not in Miami, and Aston Martin submitted that the “significant and relevant new element” was the forward-facing camera view from Alonso’s car, that was unavailable to the team and the stewards at the time of the original decision.

While the stewards agreed that the footage was new and unavailable at the time, they did not feel it met the threshold of being significant, because “while it showed the incident from a different angle, it added nothing material to the visual perspective that we already had”.

Call to review Alonso’s Chinese GP penalty rejected

Motorsport Sponsorship & Partnership News

Here are the latest motorsport sponsorship deals, partnerships and related analysis that were announced this week

Business of Motorsport
Business of Motorsport
Business of Motorsport
Miller Vinatieri Motorsports

Team & Manufacturer News

Here is a roundup of the latest team news from around the world of motorsport

Business of Motorsport
Business of Motorsport

Motorsport Movers & Shakers

Dave Player
Dave Player

Team BRIT boss Dave Player reflects on the accomplishments of the team as he passes the reigns to new Team management.

“I’ve fought for change to mind-boggling rules that discriminate against disabled drivers, and thankfully have won, yet we still see a fragmented landscape without the united front that I know would achieve so much more. I’m not one to back down from a battle, as many will know, but my fight is always based entirely on what I believe is right and fair.

Business of Motorsport
Larry Holt

RACER explains how Multimatic’s Larry Holt is disrupting sportscar racing.

“That answer would be different through different phases of my life. At this point, I think I’d just go race,” he says. “I go race and I’m a racer. I’m a technical guy. I’m an engineer. Right now I’ve got my fingers in all the pies. I started working on a jack program, did door hinges, and for a long time I gave up racing to get in the business. But if you’re asking me to pick, out of all the things I do, I go race. I run a race team. I love it.”

Mark Boudreau
Author: Mark Boudreau

Mark is the publisher of Motorsport Prospects. As a former lawyer, he applies his legal background and research skills to assist race drivers by showcasing the resources they need to make their motorsport careers happen.