Cross between Prema and Andretti
While Andretti is desperately trying to make a name for himself in F1, Prema has secured its place in IndyCar as soon as 2025.
We cannot have two more contrasting style oppositions: Liberty Media, owned by an American investment fund, turns a deaf ear to the repeated requests from Andretti, to the point of publicly humiliating the American team. At the same time, IndyCar, the leading single-seater championship in the United States, warmly welcomes a European team.
Twenty-four hours apart, these two stories collided, and it is impossible not to see in the statements of each party ulterior motives related to the other. This Tuesday, IndyCar announced that Prema would join its ranks next year with a Chevrolet engine. In the press release issued by the championship, there was no shortage of highlighting the impressive track record acquired by the team founded by Angelo Rosin in 1983. Jaye Frye, the CEO, stated: « It’s great. In our five-year plan implemented in 2017, one of our goals was to recruit new leading teams and owners. Obviously, 80 titles in 40 years is elite. There is a lot of interest in IndyCar.”
Thus, with Prema’s confirmed arrival, the discipline has brought in three completely new teams since 2018 and has seen the acquisition of a fourth team by a big name as McLaren bought a team after trying its luck solo at the Indianapolis 500 miles with Fernando Alonso.
This Wednesday, Andretti spoke up again, two months after the stormy exchanges with Liberty Media. The American team thus reiterated its desire to join F1 by matching actions with words. Hence, a brand new 4500m² building has just been inaugurated in Silverstone. The idea is that the team led by Michael Andretti is putting everything in place, including hiring engineers from other teams and setting up production machines, so that the commercial rights holder has no more arguments to refuse them access.
The team’s statement left no room for interpretation: « We said that our work was continuing at the same pace. This new building symbolizes this work. Even though we are building an American team, having a European base allows us to attract the best talents in F1 and install cutting-edge machinery. »
In the end, IndyCar will have 29 single-seaters next season while the counter of F1 remains deliberately stuck at 20… The comparison between Andretti and Prema could even intensify in the coming years as Andretti has announced that they also want to create their own path to F1, with a program in F2 and F3. They will thus be in direct competition with the Italian team, which has been dominating the junior formulas for many years.
