THE CONCRETE ROUNDABOUT (TCR)

My suspicion is that he knows far more about the competitiveness or lack of for the 2024 Merc. Faced with another season of possibly getting nowhere near the Red Bulls, I image the lure and sheer volume of the offer from Ferrari became immediately more attractive.

They may or may not be able to challenge RB this season but he will always have at least a season as a Ferrari driver and I think pretty much all of the drivers want that.

So Andretti Cadillac would need an an engine supplier which is either Red Bull (Honda), Ferrari, Mercedes or Renault.

Red Bull engine isnt ready and the current rebadged Honda unit might not even be available in a year or two
Ferrari seem highly unlikely to want to supply a rival OEM
Mercedes even less likely considering the road going car market in the USA would have them as direct competitor on or off the race track.
Which leaves Renault who as the manufacturer with the least supply in F1 as the most likely route via compulsory supply

Audi/Sauber is a bit more complex in that Audi are currently the largest shareholder of Sauber but dont in effect own the team yet. Of course they are waiting to 2026 when they will assume full control of the team but today, the team is run by Sauber who are just a customer and not an OEM.

Liberty are shit and care more about the 'show' than the sport thats a given. The decision is wrong in my opinion but I can see a rationale behind the processes applied, around engine supply in particular.

There is a cruel irony of course in that without GM they had even less chance of being accepted and with GM giving a viable reason for non acceptance.

Again, how is it compulsory? Renault are happy to supply them, have already said that they would, and clearly believe the financial and data benefits of doing so will improve their own team, and are worth any knowledge that might be leaked to GM in the long term.


Again, nothing has stopped Audi coming in sooner - they chose not to. And because of this, we have Sauber Kick Stake Sherpa Van Tampax Racing (or whatever they're called this week) limping along doing fuck all for a few years. Is this 'adding value' to F1, in the same way Andretti apparently wouldn't?


It is not the role of the commercial rights holder to judge a new team's application on its technical merits. That is the FIA's job, and the FIA has already approved Andretti.

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It's Pete's train set, and we should all feel honoured to be granted the privilege of paying to play with it.

1) this is F1. what Renault say and what Renault do rarely occupies the same space. In any event, they would ultimately not have a choice to say no

2) If Audi wanted to have come in sooner then they would have had to take over the team and supply their own engine, which isnt and would not have been ready. So whilst it was a choice, it wasnt much of one.

3) Agreed. They are the ultimate arbitrators though, for better or for worse so in the end, they can make whatever decision they like. In this instance I think its the wrong one

We're going round in circles (excuse the pun) on the first two points. Renault have publicly made clear their support for supplying Andretti (and certainly don't sound like they're being forced to), and Audi decided it was in their interest to let their new team merely exist for a few years.

Agreed on the third point, which is why - among many other things they've done - that's me done with F1.

P.S. Thank you Magpie - I've needed a good vent on this topic since yesterday afternoon and I feel a lot better for it.

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It's Pete's train set, and we should all feel honoured to be granted the privilege of paying to play with it.

Ha, you are welcome. I love F1, have for years and love talking about it. Sadly not many people do these days and I think its for the same reasons as you being done with it.

I know, probably more accurately knew, Paul Stewart for a good while and used to love talking with him about it and the stories he could tell. His view was that the sport had become far too technical so the average fan was being turned off by tiny minor details affecting the race and result when all most care about is the car going flat out from flag to finish and the winner being ultimately the fastest driver/car combo on any given day in any given circumstance.

What a cracking little team Sir Jackie and Paul ran. I remember Herbert's win at the Nurburgring in 1999 - weather and fortune played their part a bit, but it was an astonishing achievement.

Imagine if a team like that applied to join F1 today.

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It's Pete's train set, and we should all feel honoured to be granted the privilege of paying to play with it.

Well, that team is pretty much what is Redbull today so they laid great foundations.

You never did answer the original question though, what do you think of Lulu to ferrari?

Not that I especially care now, and I've never been a Hamilton fan, but it makes a lot of sense for him. He's 40 next year, it'll be his last chance to drive for Ferrari. He's almost certainly not going to win another championship with Mercedes, so he might as well roll the dice, and no doubt get one last big payday in the process whether he's successful there or not.

However, I do hope this move results in Mercedes sliding even further backwards and exposing what a total fucking fraud Toto Wolff is.

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It's Pete's train set, and we should all feel honoured to be granted the privilege of paying to play with it.

Big fan then!