Michael Andretti says he was hours away from reaching a deal to take over the Alfa Romeo Formula 1 team before talks broke down.
The IndyCar champion and team boss insisted that the deal with Sauber, who leads the Alfa Romeo team, hadn’t failed for financial reasons. Andretti said questions about the level of control he would enjoy over the team were not answered satisfactorily.
“Don’t believe the rumors you heard about why it didn’t happen,” he said. “It has nothing to do with finances or anything.
“It had more to do with control problems. Unfortunately at 11am the control issues changed and it was a deal we had to step back from because we couldn’t accept it.
“I’ve always said that we only do it if it’s right for us and in the end it wasn’t right for us.”
Although Andretti believes F1 owners Liberty Media would welcome a second American team into the sport, he said they did not act to make a deal possible.
“I think they’d like it of course because they’re really pushing the American market,” he said. “But they did nothing to help us.”
“That would have been a huge story,” added Andretti, who had already tried to buy the Force India F1 team in 2018 and had talks with Haas. “It’s a shame it didn’t work out, but I’m not giving up.”
Had Andretti’s takeover of Alfa Romeo progressed, he intended to place IndyCar driver Colton Herta in Formula 1 for the 2022 season despite his lack of a super license.
“If we ever get a team he would of course go the way for us when it comes to bringing an American driver along,” said Andretti. “He would be the perfect guy for that.
“We definitely wanted to get him on the field because I think he could definitely be a competitive driver in Europe, I really do, there is no reason for that.”
If Herta had gone into Formula 1, Andretti intended to replace him on her IndyCar team with Indy Lights driver Kyle Kirkwood. Andretti today announced Devlin DeFrancesco as the last member of his four-person IndyCar team.
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