F1 News: Szafnauer trying to start an F1 team w/o Andretti

Speaking to Motorsport.com‘s James Allen, Former F1 team boss Otmar Szafnauer revealed that he is working with American investors to bid to become an 11th team in F1.

The 59-year-old claimed he did not find a role within the existing ten F1 outfits that interested him, he said: “I’m a competitor and the one thing that I like more than anything is the competition.

“So, to come back in a role where I can’t influence how well the team is competing, I don’t think I’d be interested. If it was a role where I could help develop, build, attract the right people to improve a team’s competitiveness, I’d be interested.

“But you know, there’s only 10 teams. A lot of them have people in those roles already,” he added. “So, I don’t know how many opportunities there are out there.”

Szafnauer’s sentiments are understandable after his Alpine experience, where he clashed with the Renault management on the timelines needed to get the team successful and was let go before being given the chance to implement his plan.

“But there’s also the 11th and 12th team possibility,” he went on. “So that might be something that would be interesting for me. I’ve been working with some organizations in North America that have the funding to start an 11th team.

“It’s not Andretti,” he clarified, referring to Michael Andretti’s bid to join the sport that is currently on the rocks and doesn’t seem to have any hope of success.

“Now we’re just putting some of those building blocks in place to make sure that we have everything that’s required in order to be successful to both start a team, but also get an entry.

“So, you know, that’s interesting too,” Szafnauer maintained.

Andretti got the green light from the FIA to start and 11th team, but their bid was blocked by Formula One Management who claimed the American organization does not add value to the sport and are likely to fail.

Their bid got another hit when FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem performed a U-Turn on his earlier stance of supporting the Andretti-Cadillac project.