DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — As long as he cannot get Andretti Global into the Formula 1 grid — which seems a long way at this stage — Michael Andretti has turned his attention to other areas for the growing motor sport program. its expansion.
The first was the debut of Andretti Autosport during this weekend’s Rolex 24 event in Daytona. One in partnership with the mighty team IMSA Wayne Taylor Racing put Andretti in the grid in the top GTP class for the most prestige sport car North American race and one last chance to join 24 Hours of Le Mans.
“It’s no secret that the one thing missing from our racing portfolio is the IMSA motorsport,” Andretti said ahead of the two-day endurance race that begins Saturday at the International Circuit. Daytona.
The partnership with Wayne Taylor was announced in December, and although both sides said negotiations went quickly and the deal was completed smoothly, it was a bit of a surprise to see Andretti trained. focus on reaching an agreement. F1 team. Attempts to buy an existing F1 team in 2021 failed prompting Andretti to petition the regulator FIA to expand the grid to allow him into two cars.
Existing teams have strongly opposed Andretti’s request and F1 has simply stated over and over again that Andretti is not the only one interested in forming an F1 team. Andretti’s latest positioning is an announced deal with General Motors will pair him with the leading automaker in the United States.
The GM the partnership, along with the Andretti name, theoretically makes Andretti’s bid more attractive as F1 expands to three races in 2023 across the US
But in the meantime, Andretti continued to build his empire. He broke ground late last year on the most state-of-the-art facility in Indiana that Wayne Taylor will move into upon completion.
And Andretti will usher in a busy year on the Daytona circuit, where his father, Mario Andretti, becomes one of only four drivers in history to win both the Daytona 500 and the Rolex 24. Michael Andretti has run the Rolex three times. in his career; Taylor has won a Rolex twice in her career as a racer and four times as a team owner, most recently in 2021.
When Rolex ends, Michael Andretti will move to California to test IndyCar next week as the IMSA program expands the Andretti brand into seven different race car series by 2023. That number does not include driver development. driver Andretti drove for the two cars of the late Dan Wheldon and his young sons.
This weekend alone, Andretti will be represented by 12 different drivers in Daytona at Rolex and two in the Formula E race in Saudi Arabia.
Is there such a thing as being spread too thin? Andretti shook his head emphatically when asked by the Associated Press if he was in too many racing series.
“I don’t believe it,” Andretti said. “I believe that if you have the right people in the right positions it will only help the overall effort. I think there’s a lot of things they do here that will help the IndyCar program and our Formula E program. us and vice versa.
“I just feel we are strengthening ourselves, not spreading it too thin. You are if you try to use the same people in every show, but we are hiring the right people.”
An Andretti representative estimates the motorsport program currently has 157 employees, with Wayne Taylor adding 30 more staff after the merger. It was the Andretti resource that Taylor had his eye on when IMSA switched mixture for this year.
Taylor had some initial conversations with Andretti but quickly followed up the chats as he saw other teams during the test new car.
“I paced back and forth in the hole thinking, ‘What the hell am I going to do here? We need to go to the next level.’ And I called Michael and said, ‘I think I’m ready to do this,'” Taylor said.Even though we’ve been in motorsport longer than them, they have great assets that will help us and are helping us in terms of people and technology, etc.
“And, and so far, it’s been fantastic working with Michael and his friends and drivers and very excited about the long-term future.”
Part of the goal in merging the two organizations is to help Taylor expand into a two-car production team — Wayne Taylor Racing and Michael Shank Racing usher in a new IMSA era of hybrid powertrains as a factory Acura each team has a car — and to get to Le Mans. The GTP tier was overhauled this year to help teams qualify for 24 Hours of Le Mans, but Acura has announced it won’t be ready until 2024.
However, that is where Andretti intends to go as soon as possible. Both he and his father finished on the podium at Le Mans, while Taylor as a driver took a class victory and noted that this was the only major race where WTR never won as an organization.
“One hundred percent. Le Mans is definitely our goal,” said Andretti. “With the new partners we have with Andretti globally, our goal is to be in every major racing event in the world. And obviously, LeMans is one of the big ones. And so, in the end, we definitely want to be there.
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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
