Formula One buzz around potential Andretti team hangs over IndyCar season opener

There is talk Andretti could have a team for the 2024 F1 season

IndyCar will get underway on Sunday (AP)

IndyCar will launch a new season on Sunday on the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida but the buzz has been about Formula 1 and Michael Andretti’s flirtation with motor racing’s glamour circuit.

Andretti Autosport, with a four car driver line-up that includes F1 veteran Romain Grosjean and 21-year-old American Colton Herta, is a hot favourite to claim the IndyCar championship this season.

But the headlines for much of the week have centred around Andretti’s application to join the F1 grid as its 11th team in 2024.

While awaiting world governing body FIA’s decision, there have been multiple reports circulating that Andretti has been in discussion to purchase F1 tailenders Haas, who are sponsored by Russian potash producer Uralkali and facing financial headwinds with sanctions imposed on Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

Andretti, a former IndyCar champion and grand prix racer, had been in takeover talks with the owners of Sauber, who run the Alfa Romeo team, but said in November last year that “control issues” led to a collapse of negotiations.

The son of former-F1 drivers champion Mario Andretti, Michael said had he purchased Sauber that Herta, the youngest race winner in IndyCar Series history when he won at Circuit of The Americas in 2019 at 18 years-old, would have been one of his drivers.

Herta told the IndyStar an opportunity to race F1 would not be something he could pass up, if FIA approves Andretti’s application.

“It’s so hard to get into F1, that if an opportunity comes, you can’t just sit and wait around,” Herta told IndyStar.

Until then, Herta’s focus will be on winning the IndyCar drivers title and the St. Petersburg Grand Prix the first of 17 races on the calendar. While the starting grid will feature a number of 40-somethings, including six-time series champion New Zealander Scott Dixon and four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves, the series is undergoing a changing of the guard.

Chip Ganassi Racing’s 24-year-old Spaniard Alex Palou is back to defend the IndyCar championship he won last year and will be challenged by Arrow McLaren young gun 22-year-old Mexican Pato O’Ward, another driver with F1 ambition.

A woman will also be back on the grid with Colombia’s Tatiana Calderon joining A.J. Foyt Enterprises.

The highlight of 17-race calendar will as always be the Indianapolis 500 on May 29, which will see 46-year-old Castroneves bid to become the first five-time winner and Grosjean racing on the famed oval for the first time having vowed to never take on the treacherous Brickyard.

History also beckons for Dixon as he tries to join A.J. Foyt as the series’ only seven-times champion.

Reuters