Ex-Formula 1 driver Martin Brundle is eager to see more cars on the grid but has cautioned there is no guarantee Andretti would be competitive if its entry is accepted.
The FIA confirmed back in October that it had approved Andretti’s proposal, but the eponymous team has yet to receive the green light from Formula One Management.
Andretti’s strive to become the latest entry on the F1 grid from 2025 has been met with stern opposition from incumbent teams, who remain concerned about a diluted prize pot.
Among those, Ferrari Team Principal Frederic Vasseur has outlined how Andretti must display the added value it would bring to F1 beyond purely being an American outfit.
That resistance has remained despite the revelation that the group’s acceptance would see the introduction of General Motors as a new power unit manufacturer from 2028.
Brundle has shared those reservations, with the TV commentator citing that being a renowned name in the motorsport world is not enough to warrant a place in the series.
Speaking during a Q&A with Sky Sports F1, Brundle said: “With my TV cap on and my F1 fan cap on, I’d like to see another team and two more cars and drivers on the grid.
“Andretti is a great name, but on the other side of the coin they’ve never really built their own car, they haven’t really dominated IndyCar in recent years or any of the other categories.
“So it’s not given that just because it’s called Andretti, it’ll be competitive.
“I can understand why Formula 1 and the other teams are going: ‘Hang on a minute. F1 is in a very good place now, you can’t just join this club when we’ve gone through the years and the decades of losing money and putting lots of capital expenditure and huge amounts of budget into all this.’
“So I get it all. I think you have to look at it and say it’s Team A from America: can they put together a credible competition on the grid? And what do they bring to F1?
“I think you have to lose the emotion of the Andretti name and take a rational decision, but I would like to see more cars on the grid.”
F1 has comprised 10 teams since the Manor squad collapsed on the eve of the 2017 season, with Haas’ admission eight years ago still remaining the most recent addition.
Business expert Mark Gallagher revealed last year there was a “degree of personal acrimony” from the existing teams towards Michael Andretti’s approach to entering F1.
“What we have here is a tough negotiation going on with, in one corner, Andretti and now General Motors, and in the other corner, the majority of the existing teams who feel like they’re being railroaded into taking an 11th team and handing over a proportion of their prize money,” the Flat Chat podcast heard.
“[F1 CEO] Stefano Domenicali’s got this slightly unenviable job of trying to make the right call because he will have Toto Wolff, Christian Horner and a lot of other team principals saying to him: ‘Listen, Stefano, we have gone through thick and thin to get the sport this far. Are we seriously going to give away a slice of the cake to someone? Now that we’ve got everything looking rosy, Michael Andretti wants to turn up.’
“Of course, the other thing is it’s not even just about the money. It is, I’m told, also about the manner of the way in which Michael Andretti has gone about it.
“There is a degree of personal acrimony. It might be too strong a word, but a lot of the teams really did not appreciate the way Michael Andretti went about trying to kickstart his entry, turning up in Monte Carlo with a sheet of paper saying: ‘Sign here and let me have a slice of the action.’
“I think they felt it was a backdoor grab to come in.
“I’ve then had team principals tell me that they have met Michael Andretti, they have spent two hours with the guy and at no stage did they see how he has the capability or understanding of what it is really going to take to run a Formula 1 team.”
According to the rules, there are four more starting slots on the grid. I don’t understand the whining, in factnthe cake should always have been sliced in 12 parts – the two remaining slices should be saves in a development fund while there are only ten teams on the grid