Q: I have never felt sorry for Michael Andretti, before now, but with the announcement of Cadillac and TWG (the owner of Andretti Global, ostensibly owned by Mark Walter, and Dan Towriss) it seems this whole 11th F1 team was spearheaded by Mikey, and then he was left hanging out to dry by Mr. Walter and Mr. Towriss. The conspiracy theorist in me says: Follow the money.
Russell Zipoff
CM: “Follow the money” is always a good approach, but I would flip it around to point out Andretti needed that backing from TWG to be able to put the project together. How he feels he was treated in all of that will be interesting to find out in future, but much like Guenther Steiner was running a team owned and funded by Gene Haas, Michael was also at the mercy of those putting the money in.
Q: If you were awarding percentages on what caused F1 to approve Cadillac as an entrant in F1, where would you assign the dropping of Michael Andretti from the effort and the involvement of congress in an unfair trade practices investigation?
John Malone is notoriously anti paying corporate taxes. I personally believe he doesn’t want the government snooping around his businesses any more than they have to.
P. Worth Thompson
CM: Answering honestly, from what I’ve picked up I would go with it being 0.5% to do with Michael not being involved. Even if there were personal clashes over his approach, he was not a reason for it happening or not, from what I understand.
But the DOJ stuff, I’d give 50% to. I feel like F1 didn’t want to expand, but once the FIA opened up the process its hands were almost tied, so it then looked at all the options and identified what it would want in an ideal world. That was a full works team from GM (or any other OEM I imagine), and so it rejected the original proposal and said what it would want.
Without the DOJ investigation, I’d suggest the situation would have drifted for a while and F1 would have had no urgency to find a solution. Either it could stick with 10 – as it originally preferred – or it would get a major manufacturer-backed 11th team, and either way it would have been satisfied. I still think we’d have ended up with GM coming in, but perhaps not until 2028, or after having taken over an existing team.
Q: I recall that when Michael Andretti was hell-bent on getting into F1 early he had made a deal to use Alpine engines until the Cadillac engine was available. Now even Alpine F1 won’t be using the Alpine engine — they’re going to Mercedes next year. So, what engine would Cadillac F1 be using in 2026?
Martin Bose
CM: I’m told the likely one is Ferrari, where there will be a space freed up by Audi’s arrival (Ferrari currently supplies Sauber as well as Haas). But if that doesn’t happen, Honda would be forced to supply one as part of the regulations, which is something F1 ideally wants to avoid. If a manufacturer or team didn’t want to have to supply another outfit/share its exclusivity deal, it’s not a good situation to have it forced on it.
Q: Last week I wrote in the question that ended with, “If you were an F1 driver, with hindsight, at the start of this year you would still want to be in the Red Bull, right?”
I do concede that it is not as obvious of an answer as the previous two years, but I think the answer is clearly Red Bull with Ferrari and McLaren in a very close race for second.
I think with relatively close car potential a team with two good drivers is going to beat what is effectively a one driver team in the constructors’ championship every time. Without taking anything away from Max, he shouldn’t get extra credit for having a teammate that is underperforming so much that there is going to be a Red Bull shareholder meeting about it.
If you were to rank the Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari, and Mercedes drivers based on who you would want driving for your team right now is there any driver you wouldn’t pick Perez over?
Will, Indy
CM: It’s always hard to judge how to view a performance in the moment, because you describe Checo as underperforming but it could be that Max is so good at dealing with a tough car that he’d still have the same margin against multiple other drivers. Don’t forget, Checo finished second in last year’s drivers’ standings. At the very least, if the car is so different now that it shows Verstappen’s adaptability.
But yes, I agree with you that I wouldn’t pick Perez over any of the seven drivers above him in the standings. Nor a number of others below him, based on this year.
Q: I fail to see how the Andretti-less Cadillac F1 entry is anything but the exact same team, minus one man and his name. It is financed by the same company. The cars will be built in the same place(s), by the same people that Andretti has been recruiting. The acceptance statement even calls Dan Towriss the CEO of “TWG Global’s motorsport business,” which literally is Andretti Global. Calling the team Cadillac from the outset does not make GM’s future commitment any more solid; once they’re in, they will do what they like. By 2027 they might be thinking: Alpine have just saved themselves a fortune by ditching their own engines, these Ferraris are pretty good, and everyone just calls our car a Cadillac anyway…
Am I missing something here?
Addressing some of the reasons that the Andretti bid was rejected… How will this team be any more competitive than before? Why is it no longer “damaging to the prestige and standing of the championship” for them to start off with a customer engine? How have the apparent problems in accommodating an 11th team in the paddocks of the world suddenly and mysteriously been resolved? It’s almost as if none of these things were genuine issues in the first place.
I feel like I should be more pleased that we will have an 11th team after all, but the whole thing is tainted by the absolute rubbish that came before it. The rejection was clearly unfair, but F1 has somehow made the acceptance seem almost unfair as well.
Rob MacDonald, Chippenham, UK
CM: I addressed a lot of this recently in a feature Rob, because you’re right that there’s not a huge amount that’s different. But I do buy into the extra commitment side, even if GM might feel it was generally similar, a Cadillac F1 team (or any GM team) is far more recognizable and marketable on a global scale – for F1 itself – than Andretti.
The problems with accommodating still exist and have not yet been resolved. A number of personnel have said, “No idea what we’re going to do in Monaco or Zandvoort” but they’ll have to find a way. Some other venues are already improving infrastructure and new contracts help with that too – the Hungaroring, for example, is currently totally rebuilding its pit and paddock area.
On the customer engine front, the Renault was going to be badged as a Cadillac, which was seen by some as a problem, but more importantly the fact Renault then pulled out as a PU manufacturer highlighted the danger of that partnership. A Ferrari deal would be stronger, plus badged as Cadillac-Ferrari from what I understand, but it still could fail to get signed and a Honda supply enforced.
That’s where I’d say the DOJ investigation accelerated things. F1 would much rather have all of that ironed out or agree a date when GM had its own PU ready before accepting an entry. Audi, for example, was confirmed as joining F1 in August of 2022 because of the lead time on its power unit, which would be the same timeframe as 2028 for GM now.
Q: I’ve been a motorsports fan since the mid-1950s and I’ve never seen anything like this:
“Speaking to NBC News, Mario explained how he had been talking to Domenicali about his visit to Washington, upon invitation, as US Congress got involved with F1’s rejection of Andretti-Cadillac, at which point Maffei apparently had his say. ‘I was asked to go there,’ said Mario. ‘And just as I was trying to explain that to Stefano, Greg Maffei, Mr. Maffei, broke in the conversation and he said: “Mario, I want to tell you that I will do everything in my power to see that Michael never enters Formula 1.”
There seems to be something deeply personal going on here, as this is just beyond “business.” Is there something going on in the background?
DeeAnn Hopings, Cathedral City, CA
CM: So, this quote is from May and around the Miami Grand Prix, and was disputed by F1 and Liberty Media – although my sources suggested there were at least words exchanged.
I’m sure Michael won’t be on some Christmas card lists but I honestly don’t believe the lack of a relationship with F1 bosses ever reached the extent where it would have stopped the team coming in in its current guise. From what I was told in Las Vegas, if Michael was still team principal, the GM works team would still have been approved.
Q: Lots being made about the F1 constructors’ championship and its payouts. Of course everyone is going to want to make more money, but where does it go? With teams coming close to if not exceeding the cost cap, they can’t use the income for improvements, right? There’s investor payouts, can they escrow the rest?
Bernard, Texas
CM: They can use them for Capital Expenditure – so, big development projects and investments. Plus there are a number of areas outside the cost cap that resource can be diverted to, they just have a far smaller impact on car performance.
But the figure that was landed on was largely due to the way teams were financed in the past, which was through owners and backers. They didn’t come close to breaking even before the cost cap. Now, if you pull of some great sponsorship deals and earn good prize money, you can get close to or even reach that point.
That simply means the owners don’t have to actively put much or any finance into the team, and they can even take a profit out of it if they really want. But many teams also have other projects outside of F1 they invest in, such as Red Bull Advanced Technologies, Ferrari’s Hypercar and other racing projects, Mercedes and the America’s Cup, etc.
THE FINAL WORD
From Robin Miller’s Mailbag, December 4, 2013
Q: I haven’t missed an Indianapolis 500 since 1970 and wanted your opinion on Juan Pablo Montoya’s drive when he won the race. [ED: His first win, in 2000. Eighteen months after this letter was originally published, Montoya became a two-time Indy winner). I know he had an elite car, but the way JPM drove and where he put it in the corners and on passes was one of the best drives I can remember. Is my memory hazy?
Fred Cunningham, Simpsonville, SC
ROBIN MILLER: Let me give you the best perspective I can think of to answer your question. Rick Mears was spotting for Jason Leffler at Indy in 2000, and after the race he said the only time he thought JPM hustled the car all day was when Buddy Lazier got within striking distance. Then Montoya vanished in traffic. It was a clinic, and even got Mr. Foyt’s admiration: “That Montereier is a helluva driver,” said the Indy legend afterwards.