Despite a $200,000,000 “Bigger Than Ferrari” Promise, F1 Boss Shuts the Door on Andretti’s F1 Dream

One should never promise more than what they can deliver. Look at Mercedes, who promised Lewis Hamilton a competitive car but is struggling to fight for the second-best spot. Andretti also made a bigger than Ferrari, $200,000,000 promise to the fans. Whether Andretti will deliver on it hangs in the balance. However, it’s not entirely in Andretti’s hands to fulfill the promise as F1 Boss shuts the door on Andretti’s F1 dream. How did the F1 Boss shit the door?

Andretti has already submitted a formal proposal to express their will to join F1. Many sources suggest that Michael Andretti has already started gathering a team around for F1. Earlier, Andretti talked about premises spread over 575,000 sq. ft. The team promised to build a state-of-the-art, $200,000,000 premises, bigger than what Ferrari has if the F1 entry is accepted. However, many teams have retaliated against Andretti’s entry. 

The F1 Concorde agreement signed in 2021 says that the dilution fees are to be paid by a new team joining in set at $200 million. However, F1 has grown significantly over the last couple of years and is the fastest-growing sport in the world. Stefano Domenicali explained how despite the value of an F1 team decided to be $200 million in 2021, many teams have rejected offers upward of $1 billion. 

According to the Beyond the Grid podcast, Stefano Domenicali said, “But if you look what has happened in such a short term, talking about the value of a team, at the time, not many years ago, I would say two years ago, when the new Concorde agreement has been signed. When there was the talk about what is the value of a team that has to come in F1, a number was put on the Concorde agreement, which was 200 million. Seems unreachable because there were teams in the past which were sold for 1 pound. Now the market is offering over a Billion to teams and they are refusing that. Can you imagine that?”

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Andretti’s F1 dream might be crushed if the teams and F1 decide to increase the dilution fees. A team’s rejection of offers of a Billion dollars means that they think the value of their team is much more than a Billion dollars. 

Christian Horner is concerned about the dilution of the value of teams 

Many speculations have already been going around the fact that F1 teams have asked FIA and F1 to set the dilution fee paid by a newcomer at $600 million instead of the current $200 million. Christian Horner explained how a new team joining in will impact the prize money as well as the value of the other teams, especially the ones toward the tail end of the constructor’s championship. 

According to motorsportweek.com Christian Horner said, “If you introduce another one or two teams, you dilute the value of the current 10 franchises, which of course teams – particularly down towards the bottom end of the grid – have got a very inflated inherent value at the moment.”

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What do you think about Stefano Domenicali’s comments?