Formula 1 News: It appears Andretti burnt his final bridge into F1

Various news outlets have reported the US Congress, and perhaps soon the DOJ and/or the Federal Trade Commission, has opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding why Andretti Global has been denied entry into F1.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

If the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) starts an investigation, one of the first things it does is send notices to all potential involved parties to ‘preserve’ all of their emails, texts, documents, etc.

If the U.S. DOJ asks all the F1 teams, principals, and Formula One Management (FOM) to turn over all their emails, text messages and other correspondence associated with the matter to determine if there was collusion to bar the Andretti team from F1, they will likely be so mad, it could result in the collapse of the last potential bridge into F1 for Andretti.

Let me explain.

Michael Andretti started his lobbying efforts to get into F1 by publicly calling the F1 team owners ‘greedy’ for not welcoming him and now if it is found that he, or his partners or agents, were the instigators of the Congressional inquiry it may well be the final straw with even the few supporters he had in F1.

There will be countless hours spent by each team and the FOM to collect all that information, and if correspondence has been deleted by one team to cover up collusion but shows up in another team’s or the FOM’s tranche of data turned over, FOM and/or the teams will be in enormous legal jeopardy.

If they are required to turn over all the metadata with those emails and documents, it may not only lead to who was talking to who about Andretti’s efforts, but a host of other links and connections. Any information that comes out of the U.S. DOJ inquiry may lead to additional investigations by the European Union or other countries.

At an event at the recent Miami GP the CEO of Liberty Media, Greg Maffei, was so pissed off by Michael Andretti’s alleged move (was he pissed off because he knew collusion occurred?) that he told father Mario that he will do everything in his power to see to it that Michael never gets a team in F1.

Likewise, if the teams are culpable, they could be in big trouble, and fuming mad. So mad, it is likely they will never agree to sell their team to Andretti.

Even FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem, Andretti’s staunchest ally, has suddenly changed his stance on admitting Andretti Cadillac to Formula 1, advising Andretti to “go and buy another team”.

“I would advise them to go and buy another team, not to come as the 11th team,” he said to Reuters.

“I feel that some teams need to be refreshed. What is better? To have 11 teams as a number or 10 and they are strong?

“I still believe we should have more teams. But not any teams. The right teams.”

That statement is baffling. Does the FIA process Andretti passed last year not make them the right team?

As a result of all this…….

1. Andretti is blocked by FOM/Greg Maffei from ever being the 11th team,
2. The FIA is now saying go buy an existing team, and
3. If no existing F1 team will sell to him, Andretti’s chances of ever getting into F1 appear to be over.

What could the DOJ, US Congress, or the EU Courts do to punish FOM and/or the teams?

Collusion is looked upon very dimly by the courts. If it did occur, we, of course, do not know, but given all the statements that were made in the media by various Team Principals, it is very possible.

They were against an 11th team from the start, even though they all signed the current Concorde Agreement that allowed for up to 12 teams.

They all signed and agreed to the current Concorde Agreement that stipulates a new entrant must pay a $200 million anti-dilution of prize money fee. Despite agreeing to the $200 million, they were then insisting publicly it should be a minimum of $600 million, claiming they contractually agreed to too low a number.

That is what the dump of all correspondence and electronic data might uncover.

If there was blatant collusion, the courts could impose any number of penalties, including but not limited to, a huge financial award to Andretti, a fine so large one or more existing teams could collapse financially.

Another scenario might be Congress or the DOJ forces Liberty Media (if they colluded with the teams to bar Andretti, of course we do not know) to sell the commercial rights to F1, and in addition, impose a huge financial fine measured in the billions of dollars.

We discussed this topic further in a previous article: F1: Andretti has them by the balls, they just don’t know it yet

We suspect you may find it an interesting read.

Conclusion

As we have made clear all along, we are absolutely in favor of Andretti Global entering Formula One. However, if the Andretti’s or their backers did, in fact, engage the US Congress to investigate possible collusion, and if, in fact, collusion did occur, Andretti will likely prevail from a legal standpoint, but his chances of ever having a team in F1 will be gone.

The knives are always out in F1, but Andretti might have brought a gun to a knife fight.