Still 'a long way to go' in Andretti-Cadillac F1 process

Cadillac Global Vice President Rory Harvey says his company is "super excited" about its tie-up with Andretti Global but insists its process of potentially entering F1 still has "a long way to go".

Last week, Andretti and General Motors came together to announce a partnership that will hopefully return America's most famous racing family to Formula 1, alongside the Cadillac brand.

Andretti-Cadillac Racing will submit its candidacy as part of the FIA's expected 'Expressions of Interest' process by which the governing body will gauge the interest and validity of potential new F1 teams.

Despite a lukewarm reaction from Formula 1, which has publicly pushed back against the sport expanding the field as this would dilute prize money fund for existing teams, the FIA saluted Andretti-Cadillac's new proposition.

But Harvey warns that getting the all-clear from the governing, not to mention F1's stakeholders, is likely to be a lengthy process, and one that may not prove successful.

"We think that in terms of the partnership between Andretti and General Motors and Cadillac that we have a very good proposition," said the Cadillac Global VP.

"We wouldn’t have gone forward in announcing our intent to submit an Expression of Interest if we didn’t think it was a proposition that fulfilled the requirements and give us the ability to succeed.

"From that point of view, there is a long way to go yet in this process."

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• Andretti on F1's pushback: 'It's all about the money'

The FIA has yet to announce the specific details of its Expressions of Interest process that will guide its decision to accept or reject a new team's candidacy for F1.

"The Expression of Interest and the details have not come out exactly yet, so we have that to go as a first step," added Harvey.

"We’ll need to submit our Expression of Interest and then see how the process plays out. I don’t want to speculate in terms of some of the articles that have been written.

"Internally, we’re super excited. I know from the Andretti organisation’s perspective they are super excited and we will do our very best in terms of our Expression of Interest and be able to showcase what we believe that we could bring to Formula 1.

"The partnership we discussed last week is what will give us the ability to perform.

"We believe we have a blend of skillsets across the organisations to put together a package that ensures we will be competitive."

Queried last week on the timeline of Andretti-Cadillac's F1 endeavour, Michael Andretti was predictably evasive.

"We are going to be on track as soon as it all makes sense to be on track," said the American team owner.

But if the team joins the grid, Andretti foresees his team competing for the world title withing five years.

"We are coming in, in a serious way," Andretti told Forbes. "It will take a long time to get there, but eventually we want to be one of the top teams in Formula 1.

"Our end goal is to be competing for the World Championship five or six years down the road.

"We aren't doing this 'just to be there' – who cares about that? We want to be competing and race against the best in the world.

"We aren’t underestimating that. It will be a long, building process, but we have a good plan to eventually get us there."

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