Rivals pushing to triple Andretti F1 entry fee to $600m

Sources suggest that the 10 current teams want the anti-dilution fee to be boosted to at least $600m, with one team principal telling Motorsport.com that it was the lowest figure that has been mentioned, and that it could go higher.

If agreed the new number could force Michael Andretti to reconsider his plans to enter with General Motors brand Cadillac, which are built around the current figure.

Andretti still has the option to buy an existing team, having previously been turned down by Sauber and others.

Intriguingly, the potential entry fee hike comes just as it has emerged that Red Bull’s bosses are considering the future of AlphaTauri, with options included putting it up for sale or retaining it and moving it to the UK.

Andretti is known to have enquired about buying the Italian outfit in the past, and those discussions could now restart.

Red Bull’s price is likely to be well above the potential $600m cost of a new entry, but Andretti would have a good starting point with the Faenza factory and the UK-based aerodynamic department – and would not be compensating its rivals.

The original $200m anti-dilution fee was agreed as part of the current Concorde Agreement, which was signed in August 2020, and which covers the 2021-’25 seasons.

It guarantees a one-off payment of $20m from any new entrant to each of the 10 existing teams.

It was intended to cancel out the potential loss of prize money for the current teams on the basis that a newcomer could have entered as early as 2022, and thus taken a share of the total prize fund for the last four seasons of the Concorde Agreement.

Having failed to find a way into F1 by buying an existing team, Andretti switched his focus to starting from scratch and gaining a new entry. He is thus prepared to make the $200m payment and enter as early as 2025, the final year of the Concorde.

The door for new entries was formally opened in January by the FIA when it announced a call for expressions of interest for an entry in 2025, ’26 or ‘27, as the first stage in the process. Three potential teams are understood to have made that step, with Andretti joined by Hitech and Panthera Asia.

The anti-dilution fee will only become relevant if a prospective team passes all the checks and is provisionally accepted by the FIA. If that happens it is set to become a major point of debate.

As Andretti’s…