According to those in the know General Motors (GM) will be part of Formula One next season. Earlier this year Andretti Global Racing partnered with Cadillac (GM) which was rejected on the grounds this would add no value. A team in Formula One has to make the majority of it's components and Formula One Management questioned Andretti's credentials as his racing team has never built their own racing cars.
Andretti may be a big me in the US, but in the rest of the world he is a nobody. Everyone knows why Andretti wanted to be part of Formula One and that was the low entry fee being $200 million and the 10 teams on the grid all showing profits. This was not the case 5 years ago and is only since the teams were forced into a capped budget. People forget that teams would lose hundreds of millions each season and and there was no profit. A team today can make $500 million per season with the lowest ranked team clearing $100 million. Tis is why the sport is protected today as $200 million as an entry into the sport is cheap, but then you have to spend billons setting up a factory and have hundreds of staff producing and developing components.
Teams have to add value to the sport mainly through innovation by the technology they develop. If your racing team has never done this and has bought all your components you are adding no value and starting from scratch would not be realistic and would take you more than 5 years to get up to speed.
Gone are the days a privateer team can make this work and why we are seeing the likes of Audi coming in from next season. Williams is a privateer team ,but they have been established for decades already and the only way Andretti could be part of Formula One would be buying a team and he s not rich enough. This would cost billions and not millions. No team would be selling now due to the business models that they currently have making teams huge profits. Whoever comes in needs to add monetary value and not be a team that will dilute the profits through no added monetary value. Andretti would be seen as a drain and why he has been rejected.
Andretti must have thought he had a fair crack at this from an American view point but I can understand the Formula One Management
reasonings for denying and blocking Andretti Global. Once Andretti removed his name from the GM proposal it looks as though this will be unanimously accepted.
GM would most likely be using a Ferrari engine for the next two seasons before introducing their own engines for 2028. They will be able to purchase certain components, but the bulk of the car they need to develop and will have Pat Symonds over seeing the team. Pat used to work for Williams before joining the FIA and no doubt will add value through his knowledge to the GM set up.
