Is Colton a Trojan Herta?
Andretti Autosport boss Michael Andretti - son of former F1 world champion Mario Andretti and himself a former F1 driver with McLaren in 1993 - has spent much of the last two years trying to get the family name back into the Grand Prix paddock. He's been linked with takeover talks with McLaren and Haas but came closest with a move to buy Sauber which operates the Alfa Romeo squad. That fell apart and now it looks like Sauber is set to be snapped up by Audi.
Stymied by the lack of options, Andretti submitted a proposal to add a brand new 11th team to the grid. But this has been cold-shouldered by the FIA and by F1 team principals fearful of spreading prize money payouts too thinly, not to mention Domenicali being oddly obstructive here as well. With little movement on their application in prospect, it seems significant that Marko and Horner are now so eager to bring an Andretti Autosport-affiliated driver from IndyCar into the AlphaTauri and Red Bull set-up.
On the face of it, Red Bull simply wants to benefit from having an American driver in their line up. With the sport now US-owned (by Liberty Media) and F1's popularity rocketing in the States thanks in large part to the Netflix Drive to Survive series and the drama of the 2021 title battle, the absence of an American star is a glaring omission - one that Red Bull would love to fill. Yet it seems a stretch to think they would upend their plans for 2023 and strong-arm the FIA merely for a bit of a good PR. Surely there's more to it than that?
It's not obvious, and it's far from simple, but maybe the answer is that bringing Herta in for 2023 is just the first step in the process of Andretti taking over AlphaTauri by 2026.
What's the story, AlphaTauri?
Red Bull energy drinks magnate Dietrich Mateschitz snapped up the ailing Minardi team in 2005 and rechristened it ToroRosso, with the idea of using it as an F1 proving ground for new talent being developed by its pioneering junior driver programme run by Marko. Over the years it has paid dividends by bringing in the likes of Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo, Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen who went on to success with the senior Red Bull team. But its ruthless 'survival of the fitness' approach also arguably squandered talent such as Jean-Eric Vergne, Sebastien Buemi and Brandon Hartley who went on to big successes in other series after they were unceremoniously dropped from the programme by Marko.
And now that conveyor belt of new talent appears to have dried up with other teams poaching on Red Bull's concept. Gasly, Daniil Kvyat and Alex Albon were rushed to the senior team only to fail to thrive. Marko was finally forced to acknowledge that the cupboard was bare when the team went for the established Sergio Perez to race for them in 2021 alongside Verstappen, while Yuki Tsunoda is a Honda protege who helps cement the squad's engine supply with the Japanese manufacturer rather than a product of Marko's talent hunting.
With its interest in Herta, AlphaTauri has demonstrated that it is no longer serving its function as a driver sandpit serving up bright young things and has become just another hungry mouth to feed. It also seems to have got stuck in the doldrums with a lethargic season in 2022. And with its recent rebrand and name change, it's not even got a role in promoting the Red Bull brand anymore. It seems to have been set adrift over the last few years, consciously uncoupling from the Red Bull group while Mateschitz considers what to do with it, and/or how to best offload it. Andretti seems like the ideal opportunity, and Herta an excellent first step to making that a possibility.
