F1’s owner is being investigated for blocking Andretti

F1’s commercial rights holder Liberty Media has confirmed that the US Department of Justice is investigating its decision to block Andretti from entering the sport. Hmm.

Andretti Global’s bid - supported by an agreement with Cadillac to build an engine - was approved by the FIA last November, but F1 bosses refused to grant it an entry after concluding that it would “not, on its own, provide value to the Championship". Translation: ‘you won’t help us make money’.

And that wasn’t the only burn in F1’s statement. It added that F1 didn’t believe Andretti “would be a competitive participant”, and that the outfit’s promise to design a car for 2025 - just one year before it would have to design another entirely new car for the incoming 2026 regs - meant it didn’t understand “the scope of the challenge involved". Someone get some cold water, stat.

It’s no secret that the teams were also uncomfortable with the idea of an 11th entry on the grid, as it would mean getting a smaller share of the prize money.

Even the controversial FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem - who kickstarted the whole process - said earlier this year that Andretti should now try buying an existing team rather than chase one of its own.

CEO Greg Maffei reportedly confirmed the DOJ’s probe in a quarterly earnings call yesterday, saying that Liberty/F1 (which is a US-registered company, btw) would comply with the investigation and that he was confident no antitrust rules had been broken. He also said F1 was open to a new team if the circumstances were right.

Why stop at Andretti? Let’s hear some other names you’d like to see on the grid…