F1 News
Silence around Andretti is promising: 'Full on behind the scenes'
- GPblog.com
Michael Andretti's plans to put an eleventh team on the F1 grid are alive and well. Although not much has been heard in recent months, there are reports that things are actually moving in the right direction.
Andretti may remove money worries
Andretti wants to bring the family name back into F1 with the help of his father, former F1 champion Mario Andretti. Although Andretti has stated several times in recent years that he has already formed the team and has the funding in place, he still faces a lot of opposition from the FIA and existing F1 teams. Liberty Media, meanwhile, does not seem to be bothered that much anymore, but at the FIA and the F1 teams not everyone is yet convinced about the entry of the eleventh team, as it will presumably cost them money.
According to the latest rumours, Andretti seems to be able to remove these money worries from F1 teams and the FIA. Indeed, Andretti is said to have an extremely wealthy partner who can cough up for him the $200 million 'entry fee' and the estimated billion in start-up costs. Insider.com reports that it is quite conceivable that Guggenheim Partners is in Andretti's corner.
Silence around Andretti promising?
At the opening ceremony of Andretti's new headquarters for the IndyCar team and possibly the upcoming F1 team, Andretti thanked another attendee, Mark Walter, Guggenheim's CEO. According to the Indianapolis Star this was the first time the partnership with Guggenheim was named. The medium believes that Guggenheim is the major investor. The company already bought US baseball team Los Angeles Dodgers and British football club Chelsea, among others. Guggenheim's wallet is said to hold some $5.3 billion.
Finally, Insider also reports that the silence surrounding Andretti's F1 ambitions is actually encouraging. Dan Towriss, CEO of Group 1001 and owner of Gainbridge (sponsors of Andretti), is also an investor in Andretti's F1 plan and said, "There's a lot of conversations going on, and we're not trying to get out in front of anything or use the media as a tool to influence anything. They [F1] have an expectation on approach and decorum that people should take in dealing with them, and we respect that." Behind the scenes, Andretti's entry still seems to be hotly debated.