The Andretti Thread

[Ruslan]

Short little feel-good article on Mario Andretti that is worth a read: https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/motors ... 3cff&ei=62

"The barriers to entry were a lot lower in American motorsport than in Europe; in the U.S., you just needed to show up at one of any number of local dirt tracks with a car that met the lax rulebook."

and

"European racing wasn’t lucrative. Again, there was an expectation that competitors were from well-to-do families and could afford to race for the love of the sport, not for money."

[Ruslan]

More quotes from Mario about Hamilton vs Russell: https://www.grandprix.com/news/wolff-ca ... se-gp.html

[LuluLynx]

People like Mario Andretti were fantastic for motorsport. Mario was personable and was great friends with the other drivers. It was a hard sport to get in to, but once you were, it was a big family. It's not like that anymore. Your team is your family, your principal, the engineers. I'm sure there are individual racers who branch out to other f1 drivers on different teams. Many of the drivers have trained together at some point in their careers. Drivers arent caravaning showing up to races together in their mobil homes with all of their wife and children playing together. I liked that type of commaraderie

[Ruslan]

The F1 news feed is saying that Andretti is still looking to be on the grid in 2026 (vice 2028): https://www.grandprix.com/news/andretti ... debut.html

Two other points:

"He says the project never eased off the throttle following Liberty Media's rejection, with a scale model already being worked on in the wind tunnel."

And

"However, there are reports that Liberty and the existing F1 teams are keen on limiting the number of teams allowed on the grid to just ten in the next Concorde Agreement. Currently, the maximum limit is 12."

[LuluLynx]

This is going to be interesting to watch unfold. I don’t know enough about team buying or starting a new team to comment on that topic. But I will be following it. Andretti is a go getter. I hope he gets a chance to be a part of F1 in a different capacity than a driver.