Ousted Team Boss defends Formula 1 for outright rejection of Andretti-Cadillac’s bid ‘to protect all other teams’

I think they looked at it and thought it was too ambitious. I think F1 is protecting all the teams, everyone involved in the sport, they didn't close the door completely. Guenther Steiner while speaking to espn, via mirror.co.uk

The Italian stated that the management is correct to reject Andretti’s claim in an interest to preserve the status of other F1 teams. The Italian, who was ousted from Haas only a few days ago, believed that it is correct that they have been given another chance to enter the F1 grid in 2028 but under tough guidelines, so that the competitiveness of the sport remains and we do not witness a repeat of teams like Caterham, Manor etc.

Why did Michael Andretti’s bid for a dream Formula 1 project fail?

Michael Andretti had shown an interest in occupying a place on the F1 grid since the 2021 season. He had major talks with the president of FIA, Mohammed Ben Sulayem and the F1 head, Stefano Domenicali who showed little interest at first.

FIA was believed to open up any prospect of a new team only if there was a major manufacturer involved, seeing this Andretti collaborated with General Motors to form a tie-up in a bid to acquire a team on the grid. The team was going to be known as Andretti-Cadillac and now they had fulfilled the requirement on the FIA’s camp.

FIA opened up the application process in the February of 2023 for expanding the grid, Andretti-Cadillac saw their chance and applied. FIA gave them approval and the other part of the decision relied on F1’s side for sorting out the commercial rights. Unfortunately, F1 decided that it would not be a good decision in expanding the grid for an American F1 team, despite holding three F1 races in the country. Thus, Andretti-Cadillac’s bid for a new team has now staled down.