“I don’t know what he’s trying to achieve” Guenther Steiner takes a jibe at Michael Andretti for calling F1 “snobbish”
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Former McLaren racer Michael Andretti is popular as one of the most successful American open-wheel racers, and even after retiring from the tracks, he has successfully built a huge motorsports empire–the Andretti Autosport–with 4 IndyCar titles and 5 Indianapolis 500 Championships to its name. And now the American has his eyes set upon introducing his own team into Formula 1, but the existing team bosses, and even the FIA and FOM are not particularly welcoming towards Michael Andretti’s idea.
Formula 1 is an affair that requires huge financial backing, and every year, the teams receive a huge sum of money for running their cars in the F1 Grand Prix. Currently, there are 10 teams and the money gets divided between them, but one Andretti’s team makes its debut, the money would have to be divided between 11 teams, thus causing the sum that each team gets, to decrease significantly. Besides that, the American sponsors will also flock towards Michael’s newcomer team, and that will cause a problem for the other teams. Due to all these reasons, Michael’s team is not getting the clearance that it needs to enter into F1, and Michael is not happy about it.
In a recent interview with GQ, Michael Andretti poured all his frustration and called Formula 1 a “European club” as most teams are of European origin, with a “very snobbish” approach. Now, Guenther Steiner has slammed Andretti for using those words for F1, and he spoke about his opinions on the new team.
Guenther Steiner does not entertain the idea of Michael Andretti’s new team in Formula 1
Michael Andretti has always been interested in placing his own team in Formula 1, but the costs of the arrangement have caused the FIA to step back, and the existing teams are also not supportive of the decision. As of now, a whopping entry fee of $200 million is levied on the new teams to get into F1, but in F1 journalist Roger Benoit’s opinion, even if the entry fee is taken up to $400 million, it would not be enough to secure Andretti’s team a spot in F1.
A few days ago, Michael Andretti gave an interview for the GQ magazine where the topic of his potential F1 team was brough up. Andretti said F1 is “snobbish” and “a European club” as it did not welcome his idea of introducing a new team.
In reply to Andretti’s comments, Guenther Steiner, team principal of the Haas F1 Racing Team, said, “I don’t know what he’s trying to achieve with these comments. It’s not really our decision to give him a licence or not, you know. We have got an opinion but I don’t think we can decide that one.”
Guenther Steiner also said, “We don’t know what he presented to the FIA and FOM but in my opinion, these comments are not constructive but you live by your choices.”
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Riddhi Mondal
(1821 Articles Published)