Although the FIA, as the sport’s governing body, has given its all-clear for Michael Andretti’s IndyCar team to join F1 from 2025 or ’26, the arguments continue to rage about whether the team can reach a deal with Liberty, F1’s commercial rights holder. Under the terms of governance the FIA has 12 team slots it can allocate, only 10 of which are currently taken up. But Liberty must approve – and a big part of that is the new team reaching a commercial agreement for its share of F1 income generated from hosting fees, TV rights, etc, something the existing 10 teams are opposed to.
The opposition of the existing teams to this idea is not difficult to fathom. They’d rather not have their share of F1’s income split 11 ways. They don’t get an actual veto, but their collective view carries a lot of weight. They were the original 10 signatories to the commercial deal with Liberty before the Netflix-driven boost in popularity supercharged the value of the teams, as franchise holders. Liberty in turn wants to keep its existing franchise holders happy and is somewhat caught in the middle between the FIA and the teams. It would rather the Andretti problem be solved through it buying an existing team, but Andretti already has a team and has spent millions in preparation for the bid. It has no wish to buy an existing team, especially since having its hands burned trying to buy Sauber in ’21. That deal was reportedly within 48 hours of completing when the terms were changed massively upwards (and soon afterwards Sauber reached agreement to sell to Audi).