arrysen, on 13 Sept 2024 - 14:01, said:
Holy long post Batman - bit to cover off but will give it a shot.
No Catch 22 at all re timeline. If FOM believes that Andretti will have another go for 2028 when it becomes a factory GM team (defined not by sponsorship, but by having a GM engine - in the same way that Sauber is not yet Audi) then FOM may well have started the ball rolling on the logistics and how to fit an extra team, what additional garages for paddock space will be needed etc and taking steps to at the very least have the plans ready to push the button - thus cutting a lot of time out of the process. So 2028 really quite different from a possible 2025 or 2026 in that regard.
I don't agree that FOM should have done anything extra to make it possible for Andretti - that would show blatant favouritism and might give FOM problems with others. Not convinced that Andretti really is " the biggest racing name" in the US - I suspect that Petty or Foyt or Penske (or Ganassi or a couple of other NASCAR teams) may well be bigger - probably depends on the measurements used to determine "biggest".
Again, why would FOM make any follow up calls following the email sent to Andretti? It is Andretti looking to come in, not FOM chasing Andretti. I actually think that FOM not following up on that email is completely logical and that if I were Andretti, I would have contacted FOM independently suggesting such a meeting. I can see why the lack of response to the email from Andretti & also the lack of proactive contact from Andretti might have FOM wondering how serious or how driven the Andretti bid was.
I don't think that it's "painfully obvious" at all - although I expect there were discussions. For sure many are assuming that to be the case but I think it's only one of several possibilities or at best one part of the overall reasoning - the majority of which was enumerated in the FOM rejection statement.
Further to all that, I DO however suspect that there might be a lack of belief in Andretti from those in the paddock who were around when Michael tried to be an F1 driver. The way he did it was lackadaisical and didn't show commitment, with his team mate conducting nearly all testing for arguments sake because Michael only ventured from the US for each race, lack of fitness compared to other F1 drivers at the time didn't help his image either. It was a failure, no doubt about it & given that the current Andretti plan is similar, I can imagine senior figures in FOM and the pit lane generally having doubts on the pre-GM engined period.
Re the biggest name in American racing, without a proper national poll it is impossible to be sure, and as you say one needs to define 'biggest', but as someone who went to his first race in the US more than 60 years ago, I think my opinion may be no more worthless than most other people's.
IMO, the biggest name next to Andretti would actually be 'Earnhardt'. Ganassi: no way. Penske: Roger stopped driving at an early age, so his fame is only as a team owner, and at this point I daresay his name is better known as the proprietor of a massive fleet of rental trucks. You and I know him as the guy whose team has won more 500s than anyone else, but 'Penske' is not a household word.
'Petty' was a household word years ago, but Richard's last win was 40 years ago, after he retired Petty Enterprises did not achieve that much, and Kyle tried his best but was never one of the top Cup drivers in his own era.
AJ was arguably a better driver than even Mario, but, like Richard Petty, after he retired his racing team never was the same, and his scions were rarely amongst the top runners of their era.
'Andretti', on the other hand, has been continuously in the racing (and general sports) news since the mid-'60s, different Andrettis have been successful in multiple types of series under multiple sanctioning bodies, Mario's son was a far more successful driver than Kyle Petty or Larry Foyt was, and currently or in recent years Andretti Racing has been active in IndyCar, Formula E, Extreme E, IndyNXT, and IMSA.
Anyhow, as to whether Liberty ought to have made any effort to facilitate Andretti's application, I could not disagree with you more.
Yes, Liberty is a private company the primary formal obligation of which is to its shareholders. However Liberty's proposed purchase of the Commercial Rights had to be approved by the FIA, and one has no doubt whatsoever that, during Liberty's own application process, it undertook to the FIA to act in the best interests of motor sport and of motorsport fans.
How could rejecting Andretti have been considered (by serious people, not by the shills who wrote Liberty's rejection statement) to be in the best interests of motor sport? That rejection was contrary to the practices, principles, and ethos of the entire history of motor sport.
How could facilitating Andretti's application process - how could being genuinely open at least to the possibility - have been showing favoritism? Andretti was the only eligible applicant. Liberty's responsibility is to make the show better, not to protect the profitability of the existing 10 teams (which profitability is already vastly better than the teams expected in 2021 when they agreed to two more teams with an entry fee of $200m each).
As to your suggestion that within F1 there might be a lack of belief in Andretti because of Michael's short-lived F1 career 30 years ago, I would point out that Michael's entire F1 career was spent at McLaren, if he let down anyone it was McLaren, and yet the one team that came out in full public support of Andretti's application was McLaren! So if that was a reason, it wasn't a legitimate reason, although it may have been an excuse.