FIA president, Mohammed ben Sulayem admits “shock” on the “hostile response” to the announcement that Cadillac is partnering with Andretti with the intention of getting into F1.
Per week in the past, the FIA president welcomed within the New Yr by launching an Expressions of Curiosity course of for potential new groups for the world championship.
Reasonably than react to the shock transfer groups like Mercedes and Ferrari continued to challenge inane tweets counting all the way down to the beginning of the season, whereas the official F1 web site additionally ignored the announcement.
A couple of days later, American manufacturing large Basic Motors introduced that its Cadillac model was partnering with Andretti in a bid to affix the grid, and once more there was silence from the game’s official web site was deafening.
F1 did challenge an announcement in response to the information, however the response was hardly prone to encourage Andretti, or certainly the various hundreds of thousands of followers who need to see new blood on the grid.
“There’s nice curiosity within the F1 undertaking right now with quite a lot of conversations persevering with that aren’t as seen as others,” learn the assertion. “All of us need to make sure the championship stays credible and steady and any new entrant request can be assessed on standards to satisfy these targets by all of the related stakeholders.
“Any new entrant request requires the settlement of each F1 and the FIA,” it concluded, making fairly clear that any approval for the Andretti bid would want greater than the FIA’s approval.
This afternoon, simply eight days into the New Yr, Ben Sulayem took to social media as soon as once more.
“It’s stunning that there was some hostile response to the Cadillac and Andretti information,” he tweeted, guaranteeing that Cadillac, Andretti, Basic Motors and F1 obtained the message by tagging them.
“The FIA has accepted the entries of smaller, profitable organisations in recent times,” he continued. “We needs to be encouraging potential F1 entries from world producers like GM and thoroughbred races like Andretti and others.
“Curiosity from groups in grown markets provides range and broadens F1’s enchantment.”
With out wishing to sensationalise the scenario, the tweet would seem to underline rising hypothesis of the game’s homeowners and governing physique being at odds with each other, the FIA president searching for to make his emotions on the topic clear and open to public debate.
Apart from F1’s continued pouring of chilly water on the Andretti bid, which seems inexplicable when one considers how Liberty Media is searching for to extend the game’s reputation within the US, the principle opposition comes from Mercedes and Ferrari, each of whom have doubted the long-term worthiness of the undertaking whereas utilizing the outdated cliche of searching for to guard the game’s DNA – considerably ironic when one considers that the Andretti identify is synonymous with motorsport.
Ben Sulayem’s tweet means that this goes far deeper than Andretti, and is as a substitute geared toward highlighting Liberty’s growing want to tighten its management on the game, and the obvious want to considerably sideline the governing physique.
Certainly, right this moment’s tweet means that F1 2023 may be about greater than finances caps, Max versus Mercedes and the remainder.
A battle line seems to have been drawn.
