IndyCar asks teams to pay $1M/car - Andretti says sell the series

After IndyCar asked the Team owners to pay $1 million per car to join their proposed Charter System, Michael Andretti called for the series to be sold.

IndyCar’s 10-owner group instantly shot the idea down.

“It was comical,” Andretti told Nathan Brown of the Indy Star Friday.

“First of all, $20 million ($1 million per car) isn’t going to do anything,” Andretti said Friday. “You’ve got to have five times that number — at least. And it’s like, ‘Don’t take our money, Roger. You bought the series. We don’t own the series.'”

“Sell the series,” Andretti said. “There’s people out there willing to do it. I think there’s a lot of people on the sidelines thinking, ‘This is a diamond in the rough if you do it right.’ But what you need is big money behind it to get it to that level, and if he’s not willing to do it, I think he should step aside and let someone else buy it.

“I told him [Roger Penske], Why don’t you sell part of the series to somebody to use that money, as an equity stake. You still keep that control, but take that money and invest it, but he doesn’t want any partners.”

CEO Mark Miles told reporters last week he believes IndyCar “suffers” in comparisons to the other two major racing series in the U.S. who operate in a different stratosphere from a budgetary standpoint.

Andretti was adamant IndyCar adopt IMSA’s rules to create an opportunity for the major American sportscar series’ growing list of manufacturers to slide into IndyCar with the same engine. It would require, he explained, a complete car redesign for a spec chassis that would fit any IMSA engine but allow those manufacturers to tackle the loose power unit regulations their own unique way.

Penske Entertainment shouldn’t, Andretti said, simply be constantly seeking a third engine manufacturer. They should be looking to add several all at once.

“You’ve got to start thinking bigger,” he said Friday. “I really believe that if you really want to build this series for the future, we’ve got to build a rules package that makes sense. We’ve got to entice more than three manufacturers, and this is one way.”

“We need a big influx of cash, in order to go out and do what these other series do to make them worth all that money. It does seem like if we can give Roger things that make sense, he’d be open to do them,” Andretti said. “We still do have the best series in the world that no one knows about, and we just need to get it out there for people to know what it’s about.

“I think Roger has to decide where he wants to go. Does he want to make this an elite series, a world series that you can put in front of the world? Or do you want to keep it at the level that it is.”