US Congressman asks if F1’s Andretti block is a “money grab”

Republican Congressman for Michigan John James – who represents an area that is synonymous with General Motors – took part in a press conference outside the US Capitol in Washington on Wednesday alongside Mario Andretti, 1978 Formula 1 world champion and patriarch of the Andretti Global team.

Formula One Management, which Liberty owns, turned down Andretti’s bid as its “assessment process has established that the presence of an 11th team would not, on its own, provide value to the championship” and put unnecessary financial strain on current race promoters.

James said: “I’ll let you figure out if this is cartel-type behaviour; if this is anti-competition, monopolistic-type behaviour.

“But from where I’m standing, when you have a company, Liberty Media, that also owns 30% of Live Nation, which is literally this week under investigation by the [Justice Department] for anti-competition and monopolistic-type behaviours.

“Then when we get reports of people who will look you right in the face and say, ‘Look we’re too big to be held accountable, you have to know how to talk to us’ – well, that doesn’t work over here, that doesn’t work when a big guy gets to put his thumb down on a little guy.”

He also questioned whether FOM leaving scope for Andretti to grab the 11th slot from 2028 to ensure it would receive more money if F1 continues its rapid commercial expansion.

“From the outside looking in, one can ask: Is this a money grab?” he told NBC News. “One can ask: Is Formula 1, is Liberty Media kicking the can down the road to get a more juicy deal for themselves, so that they can go from $200 million to $1 billion dollars extracted from Andretti-Cadillac.

“Meanwhile, the commitment has been shown by Andretti-Cadillac, I think, to the tune of millions of dollars a month in preparing for the standards of complying with everything.

“We hope that we can resolve this to do business together for our mutual benefit, but particularly for America. But if not, we will have our questions answered. 

“Because we have an obligation to protect the American consumer, to protect American companies, and that is our first allegiance….