Up Next
It’s official - Formula 1 will have an 11th team on the grid in 2026 as F1 has agreed on a deal for a General Motors-backed entry to join the grid.
Could this have happened so much sooner? Is there a perfect driver line-up available to the entry already? And how much difference does greater GM/Cadillac prominence (and, consequently, a diminished Andretti presence) actually make?
Our team had their say when the initial news broke that F1 was set to make a U-turn:
*Lead image is a concept from The Race
Does this really make a difference?
Matt Beer
Clearly GM-supported, Cadillac-branded plan fronted by very recognisable American motorsport name: no, not a chance.
More overtly GM/Cadillac plan that doesn't seem too different to the previous plan: yes, definitely, come on in.
I don't get the logic behind this change to the GM/Cadillac/Andretti set-up seemingly solving all the objections that F1 and its teams had to opening the door to an 11th entry, given how much they've banged on about the need for any new team to add vast additional value to the championship.
Is GM really, really, really that much more likely to do that than Andretti?
I don't think the Andrettis have gone about their F1 bid particularly well and it's only in the last few months that its IndyCar team has actually started to hint that it really could still be a US motorsport powerhouse rather than a team that had that reputation but hadn't achieved much to back it up since the 2010s.
So I did see the holes in Andretti's arguments up to now - while also being generally pro F1 having a slightly bigger and more varied grid.
But given how vehement the objections had been up to now, it's hard not to feel that all the objectors wanted was for Michael Andretti to have a lower profile. And that makes their arguments so far feel pretty hollow.
The political considerations
Scott Mitchell-Malm
It would be naive not to at least wonder if this is a consequence of the legal pressure that’s been exerted on F1 owner Liberty Media in the US.
I've seen many responses jump to the conclusion that F1's new-found perspective on the project is a result of being squeezed by the US government. Which is understandable.
Just as it's easy to see why some people had previously linked a potentially positive Andretti update to Donald Trump's victory in the presidential elections: the notion that an impending return to having a conservative US government must be a good thing for those pushing a legal case that boils down to 'is F1 anti-competition and anti-American?'.
Not being an expert in politics, I can't say for sure. Only what I've heard or been told. I never thought Trump becoming president again would be a factor in the DoJ investigation but wondered if the outcome might be. Because this is a pretty neat solution for the main protagonists.
Why would the DoJ investigation continue if F1 finally acquiesced and let GM onto the grid, given it was the primary party the DoJ cared about with its status as a massive employer in the US?
This outcome means the US politicians get their way, and Liberty Media stops being the reluctant centre of attention. But it doesn't seem to be the primary motivation for changing its stance on letting another American team into F1.
That seems to directly reflect the fact that F1 must care that Michael Andretti's no longer in charge, more convincing people are, and GM's going to be more involved from the start, making it a fundamentally similar entry proposal on paper but a crucially different one in a few key areas.
10 months too late
Josh Suttill
You have to give props to the Andretti entry for not letting F1's decision to block it back in January stop it.
It's essentially taken a big, multi-million dollar gamble to start building up an entire F1 team with the risk it would all be for nought.
Thankfully F1 has seen sense. It's just a shame it's come 10 months later than it should have done.
The GM-backed entry has at least cracked on, building up a factory and conducting windtunnel work.
But surely it hasn't 100% committed like it would have done had it been approved back in January.
You therefore have to worry that, through no fault of the team, it could leave it on the back foot for 2026.
If that transpires it will be a helpless victim of F1/FIA's mishandling of the new team process rather than vindication for F1 rejecting the team in the first place.
The missing piece from the narrative
Glenn Freeman
The prospect of an 11th team joining the grid is great, but it's a bit of a shame that Michael Andretti won't get to write a new chapter of his own F1 story.
Coming into F1 as a team owner would have been a chance to put right what he saw as the injustice around his nightmare McLaren stint in 1993 that was cut short by the team before the end of that year.
It could have been a bit like we've seen at the Indianapolis 500 - a race Michael seemed cursed in as a driver, yet he managed to enjoy success there as a team boss.
Many will say the Andretti family only have themselves to blame for how dimly F1 has viewed their approach to getting onto the grid. Maybe that's true.
But purely from a narrative point of view, I'd have liked to see a new Andretti F1 story play out more than 30 years after the last one ended so badly.
Herta's big chance
Jack Benyon
As The Race's IndyCar correspondent, I've had a front-row seat for Colton Herta's rollercoaster IndyCar career - one in which he's impressed beyond belief but also had seasons where you wonder if he would 'make it' in F1.
But it just so happens that the 2024 IndyCar season was one of Herta's best yet. Sure, there were high-profile errors like crashing from the top three in the Indy 500 and a race he was on pole for, in Detroit, falling apart and concluding with a poor overtaking attempt.
But he's also managed the best mix of his breathtaking peak performance and consistency. He's demonstrated both at various times in IndyCar but rarely both together.
He's within reach of a superlicence, and hopefully, this news is his best F1 chance yet.
The only two questions are whether Michael Andretti stepping back impacts the team's driver selection and preference for promoting US talent, and if Herta can actually get that much sought-after superlicence.
Luckily, Dan Towriss (pictured above, right), who is now heading up Andretti Global, is reported to be a big fan of Herta too, so this might be Herta's big F1 break.
He'd be the perfect 'high upside' choice to partner alongside a pair of 'safe hands' like Valtteri Bottas.
