Column: F1 bosses say Andretti snub isn’t personal even though it feels like and looks like a grudge

Andretti Global is so committed to joining Formula One that it spent millions of dollars building a car to test this week at a wind tunnel in Germany.

Waste of money?

“We had to roll the dice,” shrugged Michael Andretti, who shared photographs with The Associated Press of the F1 test car built to 2023 regulations.

Michael Andretti and top Andretti Global executives spent last weekend at the U.S. Grand Prix in Texas trying to drum up interest for their bid to join the F1 grid in 2025. Andretti hoped to come face-to-face with Stefano Domenicali, because an ambush seemed to be his only chance of engaging the F1 president in conversation.

Just days earlier, 1978 F1 champion Mario Andretti — Michael’s dad — helped honor Domenicali at the National Italian American Foundation. Michael sent a congratulatory text to Domenicali that Andretti said went unanswered. In fact, Domenicali, Formula One Management and Liberty Media Corp. have pretty much ghosted Andretti since the FIA last month approved Andretti’s bid to expand the F1 grid for an 11th team.

The next step is for F1 to approve the application, and the only formal response to the FIA approval was F1’s declaration to “now conduct our own assessment of the merits of the (Andretti) application.”

Andretti and partner General Motors need to know, like, yesterday if they will be racing in F1 to be ready for the 2025 season opener. F1 knows this, and the longer the series ignores Andretti, another year goes by without one of the most famous names in motorsports on the grid. Michael Andretti’s 13 races in a failed 1993 season was the last time an Andretti competed in F1.