GrandPrix247 2023 News of the Year: General Motors & Andretti

Ever since Andretti revealed their plans to become an 11th F1 team, their plans have been under attack from existing teams while Formula 1 One Management have been passively reluctant to support their bid.

On the other hand, the FIA with Mohammed Ben Sulayem at the its helm were fully supportive from the start, the Emirati instructing his team to launch the process where interested parties could apply to join F1 as new teams.

That meant war between the FIA, FOM and the teams (with Toto Wolff at the forefront) began, with things turning ugly at one point with the Liberty sending a legal letter to Ben Sulayem accusing him of interfering in the commercial side of the sport after the latter warned of overpricing F1 amid reports of a takeover by the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund.

The latest edition of that brewing war was the joke when the FIA announced they were investigating Wolff and wife Susie over a potential conflict of interest situation, binning the report after less than 48 hours having caused quite a stir in the F1 community.

That is how serious F1 teams and FOM are going to protect their interests which they believe will be threatened by having Andretti as an 11th F1 team, their reasoning being: What value can Andretti add to F1?

Well, Andretti responded by announcing that they will be joining forces with General Motors (GM) in their bid, and indeed the FIA gave them the green light with FOM's approval pending.

At the beginning, the anti-Andretti squad belittled GM's arrival claiming it was just a marketing exercise and they would not be effectively contributing anything to the project.

But then in November, GM announced they would be a genuine power unit supplier for Andretti, a masterstroke by the aspiring F1 project calling FOM's and the F1 teams' bluff.

The latest move by Andretti and GM proves both are not messing around with their F1 bid, and having a manufacturer the size of GM definitely adds value to F1 who went out of its way with the hybrid power unit rule changes for 2026 to attract new manufacturers with Audi only taking the bait.

How will FOM respond to Andretti and GM's bid now? Maybe that will be 2024's News of the Year...