Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins
The days of more teams showing up to qualify than there are available grid spots are long gone in F1. How long has it been? At least 30 years since teams that showed up didn't make the show and had to go home?
We still see this at lower levels of racing, of course. I think the sheer enormity of the commitment, and not just cost wise, effectively precludes anyone building a modern F1 team just to see if they can make the field.
I agree with our good Captain's assessment. Andretti simply does not grasp the full scope of what he is trying to get into. He does not have the resources to compete, either from a financial standpoint or from a talent standpoint. Not starting from ground zero.
Maybe he will end up buying one of the teams that is already established, but are barely hanging on themselves. I think that would be a better point of entry for him. There are a few that could conceivably come available in the next few years.
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Thanks Jeff, other than all the stuff in the press I'd heard directly from a couple of people that had 1st hand information Andretti had severely under estimated what was required to start a team.
I'm sure without the Andretti over confidence, some might say arrogance when putting forward their application, maybe they're F1 application might have been more warmly recieved by FOM
For FOM to turn down GM, while trying to expand their American exposure, the Andretti side of the team partnership must have been severely lacking real substance in too many areas
Years ago I joined a 2yr old new start up F1 team called British American Racing, was Tyrell but by name only as the factory and 99% of people were new
Their slogan was a Tradition of Excellence and the team proudly claimed they would win their 1st race. In reality they had no F1 tradition/history, a long way from being excellent at anything and couldn't even score a single point in their 1999 maiden season with a recent world champion driving
The Andretti statements of intent remind me of the above but the big difference now is F1 is hugely more complex, difficult to impossible championship to compete in so an infinetly more difficult task
Wish we could all meet up in a bar some where as this would make good beer drinking topic over a very long evening
