Formula 1 is waiting for the eleventh team, and it is not Andretti?

Michael Andretti is knocking on the doors of Formula 1 with his Andretti Global project, but it looks like those doors are closed – there are reasons for that, according to the British edition of The Race.

And the point is not just that the US project, which involves the creation of a new eleventh championship team, must prove its financial viability, and that Formula 1 owners must be convinced of the serious long-term prospects it will be with. particularly in corporate America.

On the one hand, this is all quite clear, on the other, it cannot be excluded that the main obstacle to the Andretti project is different: in Formula 1, they prefer the 11th team to be in the factory. Then the championship on a global scale will receive the greatest possible attention, and in the case of Andretti Global we can only talk about a few theoretically possible plus points, and then of a local nature, namely. only in America.

The key question is: which of the major car manufacturers can come to Formula 1? Presumably there are two candidates: Audi and… Honda.

The German brand will most likely enter the championship in 2026, but it appears that Audi is not showing much interest in creating a new team from scratch, but is looking to take over an existing team to put its own branded engines on its cars. At the same time, it is already known that, for example, McLaren will not sell the team and the option with Aston Martin seems too complicated according to The Race.

Remains the Swiss team Sauber, which trades in the championship as Alfa Romeo, and the British Williams. The first option appears to be preferable as there is a well-equipped base in Hinwil, the team poised to change its name, plus Sauber has had technical partnerships with Audi in the past as part of a more than successful program regarding race to endurance.

But there is another opinion that Williams is even more attractive: firstly, the UK base and secondly, the owners of the team, US investment fund Dorilton Capital, may be interested in selling it if a good price is offered, because the cost of this asset has increased significantly.

All in all, the bottom line is that Audi has a choice, and both options come at a lower cost than building your own factory team from scratch.

Speaking of Honda, the Japanese concern recently retired from Formula 1, if not completely, as its power plants are still used by Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri, and will be until 2025, and as early as 2026, when it comes in due to the new engine regulations, Red Bull should switch to the partnership with Porsche, which will be officially announced in the near future.

And yet in Formula 1, they really want Honda to return to the championship, in the hope that the Japanese company will regret their decision to leave again. Before former Honda F1 Managing Director Masashi Yamamoto moved to Red Bull Powertrains, Red Bull’s new engine division, it was rumored that he suggested to Honda management that if the concern were to return to the championship in the future, it should. with a full-profile factory team, and not just as a power plant manufacturer.

In addition, there is reason to believe that the specialists at the Honda Research Center in Sakura are now not only involved in the repair and maintenance of power plants for Red Bull and AlphaTauri, but also on a number of promising projects.

In any case, Honda is following discussions on the new power plant regulations and is to some extent ready for a fresh start in Formula 1 – if such a decision is made at the group’s top management level. While it is clear that this will inevitably lead to many difficulties and high costs, especially in recent years, car manufacturers have changed their priorities.

However, any project involving a major automaker is certainly more interesting for Formula 1 than what Michael Andretti and his partners are up to, so Andretti Global is not on the first line of the list of possible contenders for the creation of a new team.