Q: For Marshall and Chris: At the start of the month, Stephen Ross declined a $10 billion offer for ownership of the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, Hard Rock Stadium and the Miami Grand Prix. This got me thinking: What do you think the going rate would be to buy the rights (or also venue — except Indy) of each round of the IndyCar and F1 championships? Would it be possible for a jilted party involved with each series — with backing from a major investment firm — to buy a chunk of the calendar in a hostile takeover?
Rob, Rochester, NY
MP: Doing a full accounting of each event’s value is outside the scope of the mailbag, but if someone wanted to gain control over a nice chunk of the IndyCar calendar and had a lot of money to spend, buying Green Savoree Race Promotions would be the smartest path to pursue. GSRP puts on St. Petersburg, Mid-Ohio (which it owns, I believe), Toronto and Portland. That’s more than 25 percent of IndyCar’s venues (four of the 15), so if Kim Green and Kevin Savoree wanted to sell, that’s how a jilted party might yank IndyCar’s chain.
CHRIS MEDLAND: That’s a really interesting question, Rob, because some events would definitely be worth more than others. But generally, it’s the circuit owners who hold the rights, so you’d definitely have to buy an entire venue, and that makes it a far more expensive purchase than just a round of the F1 championship. That automatically makes it so much less likely for someone to try and attempt a hostile takeover in such a fashion.
It’s also up to F1 who the race-hosting deals are with, so if they were worried about who was buying up rights to existing events, they’d more than likely look to replace them with new venues.
If you look at how expensive F1 was to purchase in the first place when Liberty Media did — $8 billion back in 2017 — and what it would likely cost now, and I’m not sure a major investment firm would risk such money trying the hostile takeover approach as they’re likely to end up just paying hundreds of millions of dollars to Liberty in race-hosting fees and then be left with racetracks that don’t have an F1 deal any longer.
That’s my long-winded way of saying I don’t really think it’s possible. But as an interesting extra point to where your question first came from: Stephen Ross was an interested party in the period that Liberty bought F1, and it was suggested that once it became clear who was more likely to complete the deal then his attentions turned to hosting a race and Liberty was open to the collaboration rather than the pair finding themselves in the middle of a bidding war.
Q: I am happy the IndyCar grid is growing, but many questions remain about the future, When will the charter system be announced? When will the TV deal be signed? When will IndyCar have a full-time female driver? And will IndyCar ever get a third engine manufacturer?
Also, if Andretti F1 does start in 2026 who will fill key positions within the team? Who will sponsor this team? Who will be the team principal? Until Cadillac arrives in 2028, who will supply the engines, and who will drive the two cars? (My guess is Josef Newgarden and Sophia Floersch). How good will they be in year one?
Kurt Perleberg
MP: Seriously? Ten questions in one submission, most of which are unanswerable? The answer to all, like life itself, is 42.
CM: Sadly, I really don’t see Andretti getting in for 2026 — 2028 is much more likely — but if it were to happen then I’d expect one of the Group 1001 brands to be the main sponsor, along with GM of course, and would be very surprised if it wasn’t Michael Andretti as team principal. Renault was lined up to supply engines, and whether it wanted to or not it would have to if there was a team — Andretti or anyone else — without a supply deal because Renault has the fewest customers.
That almost certainly wouldn’t be the driver lineup, as Floersch doesn’t have a Super License and Andretti has suggested it wants an experienced F1 driver alongside an American. That American would very likely be Colton Herta — if he secures his Super License too — and then it would depend who would be available in 2026.
Someone like Valtteri Bottas or Kevin Magnussen could fit that bill, or one of the current Alpine drivers, or even Daniel Ricciardo depending on how the driver market shakes out. There really could be a lot of options.
Q: The safety car “accidentally” picked up Max in Miami, allowing Lando to not lose the lead when he pitted? And this is being swept under the rug because everyone is just so happy there was a new winner? If you don’t know what I’m talking about go back and watch those laps on the F1 app.
John
CM: It’s not the safety car picking up Max that allowed Lando to not lose the lead, John, but solely the fact that Lando got lucky with the safety car being deployed before he had made a pit stop compared to the others. The moment that race control decides to call for the safety car, Lando is coming through the final corner at full speed — his lap time is actually 0.1s faster than his previous lap as a result — and it means he is through Turn 1 and past the pit exit before the safety car emerges onto the track.
You can see this in the highlights, where the camera is fixed on Logan Sargeant’s car and Norris comes through the frame before the safety car has appeared.
What should happen then is all of the other cars are allowed to go past the safety car as it waits for Norris to come around as the leader, but you’re right that Verstappen got picked up initially instead.
It made no significant difference though, as Norris was over 11 seconds ahead of Verstappen (and pulling away) before the safety car came out, and he only needed a nine second advantage to pit and still emerge in the lead under safety car conditions due to the lap time delta drivers must drive to. So barring a very slow stop, Norris was retaining the lead regardless.
Without the safety car, though — or if it had emerged from the pits in time to pick Norris up immediately — then he’d have been in trouble as he didn’t have enough of a gap to keep the lead in green flag conditions, or the field would have instantly formed up behind him before he could get into the pits.
Q: Apologies if this has already been discussed, but I recently saw the video of Dilano van ’t Hoff’s fatal accident from last year, and I was horrified at the near-zero visibility from the spray and that they allowed racing to occur at all. Now that we are heading to the European races on the F1 calendar and the increased possibility of rainy conditions, it reminded me of your June 3, 2023 story, F1 to test rain guards at Silverstone.
So, what was the result of that, and was there a follow-up story that I missed?
Brent Roebuck
CM: Your timing is good, Brent, because while that initial test just sent everyone back to the drawing board, there was actually a test of some further rain guard solutions by Ferrari last week. That Silverstone test you referenced was kept under wraps but featured two smaller sections of covers or deflectors that the FIA felt made no real difference to the amount of spray when run in real world conditions.
That meant a bigger solution was needed, and the first versions tested by Ferrari last week were far more agricultural in that a complete cover of the wheel was trialed, and also a similar version with more gaps to the side, but neither the FIA nor Ferrari publicly spoke about it as it’s in such an early phase of testing.
As it’s something that hasn’t been implemented in F1 before, I understand a number of versions are being looked at and different tests will take place to see their impact on both spray, and also car handling and aerodynamics, so we’re a long way from a solution still and it’s all fairly basic at this point. The main thing that has been learned so far is that it is very complex and there is no quick fix.
Q: I’m not a fan of DRS. It creates artificial excitement and an unfair advantage. You get out-qualified, but no worries…. you’ll have DRS two laps after the start to steam on by.
That being said, how about making it available for a set amount of time similar to P2P? Instead of limitless availability, allow 200 seconds.
Keith, Minooka, IL
CM: This is one we’ve had before, and I have to admit I like the idea. I always defend DRS from critics by pointing to P2P as both are overtaking aids, but you’re right that there’s more of a skill to picking how and when to use P2P (aside from when a leading driver wants to keep a rival in DRS range to help defend from cars behind in F1).
THE FINAL WORD
From Robin Miller’s Mailbag, May 14, 2014
Q: I thought the Indy Grand Prix was great. It had a little bit of everything. What can be done to prevent the cars from stalling on the standing starts? Even Montoya stalled — what is the issue? Also, two safety items that need to be addressed are adding permanent fencing to protect pit lane at Indy, and driver cockpit protection. Other than that, we’ll be coming in from Montana for the 500. Can we just name-drop you at St. Elmo’s Saturday night to get a table?
Roland Newrones
ROBIN MILLER: Tony Kanaan and Dario Franchitti both say it’s a mechanical or software issue and upgrades to the system are necessary but expensive. That debris fence from MotoGP needs to be in place for all IMS races. You can drop my name at the Mug ’N’ Bun but St. Elmo’s will likely seat you in the alley.