Just when F1 started becoming insanely popular after DTS, myself included, and seeing F1 wooing the USA to grow their sport, F1 is fucking up. Like F1 has always been open to other teams it is just now that they decided fuck anyone who wants to enter F1. If they just wanted 10 teams after the cost cap regulations they should have stated it. Not give false hopes and always move the goal post. And now after moving mountains establishing F1 in America they spit in its face denying Andretti, they are just opening themselves up asking for the us government to step in and review these anticompetitive behaviour and fuck up their USA dreams.
I wouldnt take Mario’s dwscription of the situation at face value, since there is a source that says it happened differently.
But fuck guys like Greg Maffai anyways
Who knows, that is the kind of thing you say quietly to someone as you end the conversation.
Though at this point it is very clear that they aren’t letting there be an Andretti team for no other reason than they don’t feel like it. The whole binging value by being competitive is BS. No brand new first year team is going to be top flight. If being competitive was important. Alpine would be kicked out.
Money has been the issue since day 1 and anyone believing anything else has been burying their heads in the sand. A new team is not going to bring anymore meaningful revenue to the series. I think we can all agree on that. That means if a new team enters and is entitled to equal benefits, the payouts for all 10 other teams go down by 10%. That’s a non-insignificant amount of money that they’re in no way willing to give up.
I just think it is unreasonable to reject a bid to join just because they are not bringing value yet. Nobody makes a business investment and expects a return year one.
Andretti Global is not a new thing. It has 26 drivers across 8 different series and has been a racing entity since 1993. It would seem like if anyone was going to make it as a brand new team they would be at the top of the list.
Plus in America still to this day Maro Andretti is a name that even non racing fans have a good chance of knowing. In the American market his name has real value. It is no secret that F1 is trying to get a larger audience in the US. I have no doubt that the Andretti name would help. You ask non racing fans if they know who HAAS is and they say did you cough. If you ask them if they know Andretti they will say. Isn’t he the racing guy, my dad loved watching him race.
Are the short term losses really so bad that they out way the potential long term gains?
Nobody makes a business investment and expects a return year one.
Except that’s the issue, they do now. Long term sustainable growth is no longer acceptable, and hasn’t been for some time. Shutting down ideas that would clearly be good in the long run in favor of short term gains has been the order of the day for years now.l
Yeah I know… It is dumb as shit. Hell one of the most successful investors of all time has repeatedly said that you must have long term thinking to be successful. Warren Buffett did not make Berkshire Hathaway the company it is today by day trading.
