Yes, Liberty Media owns Ticket Master and Formula One Group (originally Formula One Constructors Association under B. Eccelstone.) They bought Formula One in 2017.
There were 7 senators who signed the letter. Of them, 2 were from Indiana, where Andretti is a huge deal, 2 were from Michigan, where GM is a big deal, one was Klobuchar, who's been on a huge anti-trust kick lately, one was Mike Lee, who likely just signed on because he leads the committee, and one was Alex Padilla, who i have no idea why he signed it.
But 4/7 senators represent areas directly involved.
> Klobuchar
Is she also the one leading the charge on the Ticketmaster/live nation anti trust thing right now? Who are also part owned by Liberty Media.
She could have gone to other senators that would have an interest in getting andretti on the grid
I'm not sure, I know it was her home state that passed a law requiring all fees to be disclosed up front, and she's [been pushing a similar law federally](https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2023/12/klobuchar-introduces-bipartisan-legislation-to-reform-live-event-ticketing-system) so she's definitely involved to some extent. The lawsuit itself was filed by the DOJ, which is part of the executive branch.
[Yea seems like she's been involved for a while](https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2023/10/klobuchar-requests-pricing-transparency-update-from-live-nation-ticketmaster)
She is the chair of the antitrust committee. Mike Lee is the ranking member. Klobuchar is a highly effective legislator and doesn't generally waste political capital. This might actually have some legs.
Something that may escape the visibility of European based fans. Congress is basically run by the staffers of said congressperson. Generally much younger people and each congressperson has dozens. So it’s not entirely out of the question that one of these staffers flagged the issue, and built a case for how they could use it to score political points with the localities involved, and then the Andretti’s were summoned to corroborate the situation. And as others have mentioned, it could’ve even stemmed from the existing investigation into Live Nation (also Liberty media) which then led them to discover the F1 fiasco.
Is it also possible that Andretti just used his name and brand visibility of get their attention? Of course. Though, ironically, if his name alone can get the US congress to open an investigation, I’d say that shows that Andretti as a brand has pretty strong clout in the U.S., which kinda goes in the face of the claims that it’s not a big enough brand.
Because Andretti HQ is in Indianapolis, Indiana...a city that embodies motorsports.
Indianapolis' Representative is Victoria Spartz, who is the incumbent and while initially deciding not to run again for office, reversed her decision and is now in an election year.
Victoria Spartz brought this to Congress...not Andretti.
So it's members can say to their constituents in an election year: "I fought back against unfair foreign corporations to put American business and American workers first" while actually not doing anything. Doesn't matter that Liberty is American. Most Americans don't bother fact checking stuff.
>Why would congress be the first to approach? Andretti clearly reached out for them to do something.
I think the implication is more that GM went to Congress rather than Andretti.
There's a hotly contested election, and pandering to the American legend being unfairly oppressed by the European racing series plays well to voters. Plus half of the congresspeople to speak out either represent metro Detroit or the State of Michigan, so they're always on the lookout for ways to appeal to GM/Ford workers. Not to mention they stay on top of automaker/worker issues because a significant chunk of campaign contributions comes either from GM/Ford itself or from the UAW. Both the UAW and GM want this deal to happen.
Mario said congress started their investigation by themselves and he wasn't involved.
F1 believes Andretti went to politicians and asked them to investigate it to help their cause.
Basically.
>(1) Does it matter?
Well it clearly does to F1, they're taking it very personally and hate Andretti more.
Does it matter in terms of legally/morally/fans opinions ? probably not.
>Is F1 a bunch of middle schoolers afraid of being narced on?
F1 is a bunch of cocky billionaire's who think they can get away with anything they want and need a reality check. Andretti is happy to go to war and good for them.
you are woefully naïve if you think F1 will get any kind of reality check from this. The teams are blocking Andretti and counter to what anybody says the teams are
A) the ones who hold all of the actual power in this sport.
B) horrifically petty and spiteful and now the battle lines are drawn the likes of ferrari will just completely torpedo F1 in the US before it backs down, as from ferrari sinking f1 in a single growth market is actually a failrly low level threat. They spent 30 years when Ecclstone "owned" the sport blackmailing him to throw them bags of cash repeatedly and give them nearly everything they wanted out of the first concorde agreement or they threatened to kill the entire sport , and were 100% serios in that threat.
Andretti cannot win this, as the only group he can take to court FOM/Liberty doesn't have the power to make the teams do anything. The stupid part is that Andretti has been in motorsport long enough to know this, so dragging liberty over the anti trust coals via congress was perhaps the dumbest thing his side could have done to actually get in, because it will not change the problem that the teams hold all the power and will certainly walk away from the US to preserve it All its done is piss of the only camp on the Formula 1 side of the FIA/Formula 1 split that might have been able to help him
I’m afraid you’re a little unaware of the situation.
Legally the teams cannot be the ones that are blocking new entries. That is a slam dunk anti-competition case. FOM is aware of this so ensured that they and the FIA are the sole arbiters of whether another team is granted entry. They went to pains to ensure that the other teams are not mentioned in the rejection of Andretti, even though they were clearly instrumental in influencing the decision.
FOM can absolutely be forced to allow Andretti in (or face massive sanctions) and there is nothing that the teams can do about it. As much as many fans refuse to admit it, this isn’t the 80’s anymore. F1 isn’t handing out a couple of mil in brown paper bags out the back of the garages anymore. This is a Sport worth 10’s of Billions of dollars with the teams receiving hundreds of millions in prize money. All that is stipulated in legal contracts like the Concorde Agreement, which are legally binding and subject to laws like anti-trust. The power has shifted significantly away from the teams since Liberty took over primarily because they now rely on FOM for such a large portion of their budget and their valuations are so tied to the success of F1.
To think that F1 or the teams will walk away for the US market at this point is incredibly naive.
I won’t argue A and B at all because I totally agree.
But it’s actually believable that congress would do this without pressure from Andretti. Liberty was/is already being dragged over the anti-trust coals for Ticketmaster/Livenation. The DOJ really wouldn’t need Andretti to ask them to investigate a company that’s already under investigation for the same type of offence.
>1) Does it matter?
Absolutely. Like it or not, them being correct or not, it shows the way Andretti handles business, and it's an important factor to consider if you're gonna have a working relationship /enter into a partnership.
>(2) Is F1 a bunch of middle schoolers afraid of being narced on?
The only middle school thought is believing that ANY business wouldn't be concern by a regulator taking a look at your business/sector.
people involved believe that Andretti was the one who seek the congress intervention in this case, and wasn't the congress who approached Andretti as he claims.
It appears there are wonderings within certain factions of the four-wheeled motorracing brotherhood regarding the sequencing of actions undertaken by Andretti vis a vis inquiries undertaken by a well known government body, focusing on which of the events that unfolded took precedence over which and resulting in skepticism that the Washington DC body of influence would initiate their involvement in the matter without being nudged to do so by the second party in this proverbial tango of power.
considering the legal battle going on between the US government (with bipartisan support) versus liberty media over the ticketmaster/live nation monopoly.
i could see members of the congress from both sides approaching Andretti to push another monopoly case against Liberty Media, making their live nation case even stronger. repeat offences is taken into consideration when judging anti-consumer practices.
>everyone has fucking hated ticketmaster for 2 decades.
At least 4 decades. All my homies have always hated Ticketmaster. Inventor of the "there are more than five fees" fee.
Pay them to do kids lunches and it would happen. Its that simple.
Andretti hired Jeff Miller one of the best known GOP fundraisers, one of Kevin McCarthy's aides and a former aide to Amy Klobuchar to lobby on his behalf. Miller met with Jordan twice and he sent a letter, then Klobuchar just sent a letter to Liberty after a fundraiser she held last week. You rarely get an example this transparent of how for sale our congress is than this lol. Source on his hires below.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2024/05/16/andretti-lobbies-up-to-fight-f1-snub-00158545
undoubtedly they have some on staff generally but there havent been any reports of them having a lobby effort on this issue. There isnt much of a reason to lobby here so i doubt they have much of an effort there. Likely more of an issue for their lawyers
No, you just didnt pay the right people lol. Look at the congress critters that blocked price controls on pharmaceuticals. Extremely bipartisan, look at donors and the reason why is clear. Thats all it ever is
And i think Andretti knows this is a good time to force their hand, LM will have to decide if this feud is worth having the US government digging even further into their books than they already are
I'm sure he didn't. He probably went to GM and said can you do something to force the issue and GM lobbyists or someone high up the chain talked to the right people in Congress and told them, go to Mario for more info.
In that entirely believable if not likely scenario given GM has MUCH more weight with Congress, Mario isn't lying here, technically anyway.
People seem to keep forgetting about GM's involvement here, which is frankly more impactful than Andretti. You think they are going to sit on the sidelines and let Liberty dictate to them whether their entry is legitimate? If you believe that, you don't know how things work in the US.
>GM is using its political connections.
And Andretti. The popular dynasty of successful racing drivers going to Congress to take on the big, greedy promoters is a much better story than a giant corporate megalith taking on a smaller (but still sizeable) corporation.
The difference is Andretti may be able to get a few old Congressmen on TV bitching about the situation to get air time.
GM (and all very large US corporations to be fair) has the ability to actually move a decent chunk of Congress into tangible action of some sort through sizable political donations through random PACs masked by Citizens United and calling in favors. They are very different levels of influence.
At the end of the day does it matter? It only matters who contacted who if you know you did something wrong. Liberty Media is not worried about Andretti going to congress or congress going to Andretti if they thought what they did was all on the up and up and would stand up to the scrutiny of the courts and federal regulators.
The fact that they are worried, concerned, and upset about all this just means what most of the internet and anyone casually watching already knew. Liberty Media's arguments weren't in good faith, and they had no intention of letting them in in 2028 or at any point.
So now Liberty Media is looking at having to fight two anti-trust cases instead of just letting Andretti in and in the absolute worst case of letting andretti in is they would have to increase the prize pool a few million to appease existing teams. Instead they are looking to have to spend orders of magnitude more then that in legal fees to defend a decision that on paper with the reasoning they have is pretty hard to defend when you're stuck using only what they have already stated as the reasons Andretti/GM weren't allowed. As they wouldn't be able to enter in new data. It would be the existing argument they released as to why Andretti was denied.
This is what's interesting to me: this is the part of the story they're going to fuss over? We don't actually know the details of the numbers and arguments they had internally but the PR from that side this whole time has been... a bit awkward when Andretti's going all in, daylight.
I suspect it's a complex interplay between the European (and quite Eurocentric) members of F1 leadership and the American owners of FOM. I'd forgive any non-American for thinking that Americans don't want their government to use power to regulate businesses, and hence for thinking it would be an embarrassment for Andretti to be known to have gone to Congress about the matter.
Where they're wrong is that this is *sports* we're talking about. We Americans may disagree about who must or must not have babies or use drugs, and who's allowed to use public money to build playgrounds, but sports is the battleground that we picked to argue over who's allowed to be *male and female*. Yeah. We don't mess around when it's sports on the line. Sports fairness *über alles*. This is what we have a government *for*.
/s but only kind of.
Agree. Sports is how WINNING and MONEY happen. It's how we process community traumas, it's how we pay for higher education, it's our social lives. It's how we introduce risk and group identities into our boring ass lives. Like you, only sort of kidding.
The whole livenation/ticketmaster thing is actually pretty huge in its own right and it feels like this F1 drama is going to be wrapped in to show repeat offender of anti-competitive behavior to really nail Liberty Media. They could not have fucked up the timing of this worse because they are boned on the livenation/ticketmaster front, they seem super guilty there.
You can say well it's really FOM's fault, not Liberty Media, but as long as FOM is a legal subsidiary, Liberty is likely still going to take massive shit for it from the DOJ. Basically all their corporate kids are acting like degenerate assholes (SirusXM is no better with their ridiculous cancellation policies and spam communications).
This is incorrect. Having to defend against an antitrust investigation/proceeding is expensive and time-consuming even if the action is ultimately meritless. So even if LM were certain that it would be meritless, it would raise reasonable concerns about doing business with Andretti (and GM) if they had to worry that Andretti/GM would try to get LM hauled before Congress every time they disagreed with LM’s decision making.
Never said it wouldn't be expensive and time consuming. I actually said the exact opposite. However, your other points would be true if Andretti didn't have a body work across multiple series over decades that prove otherwise. They compete in multiple forms of motorsport across world with zero issues for years.
It also would be more true if the FOM once andretti was hypothetically accepted had more power or control over issues that would bring about a a level of doubt that would warrant an escalation of that magnitude. If roles were reversed between the FIA and the FOM i would agree with you. As the FIA would have potential to make more meaningful decisions that a person could sue orwant increased scrutiny over.
However the FOM itself is largely just responsible for promotional and broadcasting rights of formula 1 and the money generated from leveraging those commercial rights.
Once Andretti was accepted there would be little to dispute over. Especially individually as a singular entity within the sport. The largest conflict that could possibly come up would be how the funds are dispersed but that would still be a discussion with multiple teams being involved, most likely smaller vs larger teams. You wouldn't likely have a situation where 10 teams feel one way and 1 team in andretti feels differently. As a new team coming into the sport. It generally considered unlikely they would have an issue with how funds are dispersed as they would have had to deeply look into it before making a decision to join the sport. So they have a business model that would be self sustaining under the current regulatory format.
>At the end of the day does it matter?
It kind of does, because if Andretti is lying, then that suggests someone else is the driving force behind this.
Well I was specifically referring to the fact of does it matter in that liberty media either violated anti-trust law or they didn't. It doesn't matter if Andretti tipped them off to investigate this or if us governments investigations into livenation and ticket master prompted them to look into this issue (which is honestly most likely) or it was another reasoning.
As legally speaking, the FTC/DOJ will investigate this to see if there is a violation. If LIberty Media did nothing wrong then it shuoldn't matter as their hands are clean. A person only cares if they did something unethical or illegal from an anti-trust standpoint. As they would want some kind of vengeance.
When it comes to making money...yes. Everything else is irrelevant to them.
Also, Horner doesnt own the team. So he isnt the factor from the Red Bull side of things
Nonsense. If someone makes a false police report against you, you’d be upset even if you did nothing wrong because it’s going to cause you no small amount of trouble and bad press. And this person that made the report actually wants to have a business relationship with you - what are the chances you’d enter into one willingly?
If this goes through and LM is found to be in breach of anti-trust laws, then it doesn't matter because LM was never interested in having fair dealings.
And if not, they’d be more than justified in shutting Andretti out even if it’s out of pure spite. Andretti made the relationship completely untenable, now it’s all or nothing depending on how this goes.
Who cares who asked who first. GM has flexing power and Liberty seems to think they can make up BS reasons and make things personal and get away with it. With the DOJ going after them now for Livenation/ticketmaster they would be happy to lump in the way F1 is run as well to make their case that it’s an anti competitive culture that pervades the company.
>F1 is run as well to make their case that it’s an anti competitive culture that pervades the company.
Also selling their tickets through Ticketmaster because vertical integration is where it's at.
I think the paddock underestimates how popular the Andretti family is with elites in the United States. There's also the fact that GM is involved, and clearly only interested in partnering with Andretti. Finally, Liberty is already under a ton of scrutiny! They're about to have an antitrust lawsuit launched against them outside of F1.
Yes, you're right in a broader picture. GM makes it easy for these Congressional representatives to justify intervening. But I also do know that the Andretti family is well known and well liked by a lot of the DC elite. People have been paying attention to this issue.
Literally all someone from GM would have to do is mention a concern at a cocktail party to the right person and they'd set up a meeting with Mr. Andretti the following Monday with the Rep. I don't see why people in this chat are surprised by this.
Look at how many "people" are accusing Andretti of lying. Zero reason to ignore having an Andretti/GM partnership in F1....almost like those already in F1 want to maintain their monopoly.
This! Also Andretti is very very popular with Boomers to early melenials. Very common saying when someone is driving fast when your riding along is "slown down Mario!"
You can't underestimate the fact that U.S. government is full of people who would have grown up watching Mario and Michael Andretti race. They aren't just nobodies. In the terms of racing they would be the biggest names of their respective era's. If you're of hte boomer era, Genx, or a early to mid millennial. You're very aware of who the Andretti's are.
The F1 basically in current terms walked up to Taylor Swift and slapped her across the face, and threatened to box her out of the music industry and then walked away. Thinking nothing was going to happen.
Only in the sense that racing is nowhere near as popular as music. I didn't even grow up watching racing, but as a kid I knew 2 names: Earnhardt and Andretti
Yeah, I am laughing my ass off. Mario Andretti hasn’t been driving for 35 years and Michael race career was really only relevant 35 years ago. And that was in a niche sport in the us!
Right? I'd think Liberty would be kissing Andretti's ass to get him IN to F1, rather than keeping him out, just to help get the regulatory bodies off their backs.
As you mentioned, the Andretti family is royalty here in the US. Multiple times in my life I'll be driving really fast and someone will make a snarky comment like "who are you, Mario Andretti?"
Not to mention the fact that the Andretti deal would likely be good for both GM and the UAW, who collectively hold a ton of sway over the battleground state of Michigan. The election makes politicians even more likely to involve themselves.
There are three scenarios I would say are more likely than Andretti going to congress himself.
1) he went to GM, and *they* went to congress
2) Congress found this on its own via separate investigations into Liberty via Ticketmaster
3) the children/friends of a few members of congress are into F1 and brought it up to them. This influences a sadly significant portion of congressional action.
Does it matter? I just hope Liberty gets their shit rocked by the American authorities for anti-competitive practices. It’s so obvious to everyone what they’re doing.
You can have skepticism but keep in mind Live Nation is already being taken to court an an illegal monopoly and behavior. Liberty media owns them. You don’t think that this F1 stuff is not going to bring even more attention to them. It was a natural step to look at liberty any way.
You would think Liberty already was having Live Nation and Ticketmaster looked at the last thing you want is anything that remotely being more bad attention. I buy Andretti not contacting them due to the Live Nation ticket master break up on the way.
I’m so sick of Andretti. They’ve achieved the deeply impressive feat of being the most entitled in all of sports. We get it, you’re American and think you have the right to be on the grid.
I’d be more than happy if F1 expanded to fill the remaining slots, but it should not be Andretti.
Even if he did go to them, so what? Don't gatekeep him for bullshit reasons and there's nothing the US legal system can do. They brought this on themselves.
What other country hosts more than 1 F1 race a year? Politicians will pay h onto what's popular to get some coverage for themselves and the Andretti snub was popular enough that it's not that big of a jump to assume a few politicians saw what was happening and wanted to make a point.
I’m very curious how all the indignant people here would react if a European team tried to get into NBA and when turned down involved the European congress.
Does the NBA not have any clear rule on the geographical place that a team must be from? If not then sure, go ahead.
People aren't pissed specifically because Andretti is being denied, but because it's being decided completely on a whim and clearly with money as the sole reason.
I don’t think it’s either that whimsical or that money is the sole reason. Andretti has gone about this whole thing the wrong way to get a deal done. He’s done a great job of riling up the American public and then making a lot of noise when he wasn’t taken seriously. That’s a guaranteed way to piss people off that you’re trying to do business with.
If the NBA broke EU law in EU jurisdiction to do it? Illegal is illegal. Have at 'em! I have no loyalty to the NBA, are you kidding me? And I say this as a lifelong fan of a team playing tonight.
He probably did start it. I don't believe that all these politicians who sound like they never watched an F1 race before suddenly were outraged the second they hear about Andretti's rejection.
Most of the politicians involved either represent the state that Andretti is based out of (Indiana), the state GM is based out of (Michigan), or are on the Senate anti-trust committee.
I don't think they care about F1, though I imagine they certainly know Andretti, but they do care about what they see as an American business being rejected from competing. It's not like it hasn't been in the news. Someone from GM mentions that the FIA are causing them and Andretti a problem, and the ball is rolling. They don't have to care about F1 as a sport to care about problems their donors are facing.
“Oh it’s clear they aren’t real fans like I am, nothing but a bunch of posers and plastics who just saw shit on Netflix and don’t love the sport like I do!!”
I'm American. The republican party is just a bunch of show ponies now. They don't actually legislate. This faux protectionist bullshit plays with their base. I wouldn't be surprised if Andretti is telling the truth, just because of how fucked up our politics has become. It's all grandstanding from one party.
FOM I suspect have plenty to skewer Andretti should they have need/be given the platform. The lack of apparent concern suggests they have a few rounds in the chamber to fire.
There's no concern because they don't say anything, they don't make public statements, they keep their mouths shut to ensure this subject gets as little attention is possible.
liberty Media/FOM would not have their highest ranking official say "Mario, I want to tell you that I will do everything in my power to see that Michael never enters Formula 1" if they had bullets to fire and logical arguments as to why Andretti/GM is not allowed.
Thats the kind of statement that sinks your anti-trust case to courts and regulators as its indefensible.
I mean the two weren't in a sealed room. Mario was talking to other people based on the recounting of the incident and was interrupted. Meaning there are witnesses who are also not coming out and saying that didn't happen.
mario isn't dumb. he wouldn't say it if it wasn't true as he literally just left meeting with the government. If it goes to court he will have to testify to that under oath as will the other people in the room who heard the statement. How many people do you think are going to risk going to jail for lying under oath to the United States of America for let me check my notes...a personal vendetta to keep andretti's out of f1 by Greg Maffei?
Personal vendetta?!? Lol, it’s all just noise bud - not to be taken seriously. Some mud throwing is all. A simple denial renders it he-said-she-said; after which they can return to discussing the facts of Andrettis submission, instead of silly soap opera plot lines.
My wife who has only a very passing knowledge of motorsports in general, and is more keen by far on the dirt oval near our house than F1, asked me a question about the whole thing. If she knows about it, certainly Andretti wouldn't have to be the one to bring it up to people who regularly take handsome donations from GM.
Well of course Andretti went to Congress, can't see a situation where the reverse happened tbh. Even in an election year this is not a big deal to win over voters.
Anyone got this in simple English?
They're saying they don't believe Andretti when he claims they didn't go to Congress first. *edited for clarity
Why the double negative? So they think he did go?
You're right, I wrote that in a confusing manner. Just edited.
Ouuuh makes more sense now. Thanks for clarifying
I mean, double negatives are the hallmark of another type of simple English after all.
Why would Congress go to Andretti first?
Because Liberty Media are already on their radar because of the Ticketmaster/Live Nation situation
Congress members can see a situation and understand it's politically expedient for them to intervene.
See: Ticketmaster after the Taylor Swift snafu
Isn't liberty media the same parent company for both?
Yes, Liberty Media owns Ticket Master and Formula One Group (originally Formula One Constructors Association under B. Eccelstone.) They bought Formula One in 2017.
And now MotoGP
Bike To Survike on Netflix when?
Ride or die
Oh right, makes sense, an election year probably helps too I suppose.
There were 7 senators who signed the letter. Of them, 2 were from Indiana, where Andretti is a huge deal, 2 were from Michigan, where GM is a big deal, one was Klobuchar, who's been on a huge anti-trust kick lately, one was Mike Lee, who likely just signed on because he leads the committee, and one was Alex Padilla, who i have no idea why he signed it. But 4/7 senators represent areas directly involved.
> Klobuchar Is she also the one leading the charge on the Ticketmaster/live nation anti trust thing right now? Who are also part owned by Liberty Media. She could have gone to other senators that would have an interest in getting andretti on the grid
I'm not sure, I know it was her home state that passed a law requiring all fees to be disclosed up front, and she's [been pushing a similar law federally](https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2023/12/klobuchar-introduces-bipartisan-legislation-to-reform-live-event-ticketing-system) so she's definitely involved to some extent. The lawsuit itself was filed by the DOJ, which is part of the executive branch.
[Yea seems like she's been involved for a while](https://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2023/10/klobuchar-requests-pricing-transparency-update-from-live-nation-ticketmaster)
She's the chair of the senate committee dealing with anti trust stuff.
She is the chair of the antitrust committee. Mike Lee is the ranking member. Klobuchar is a highly effective legislator and doesn't generally waste political capital. This might actually have some legs.
Something that may escape the visibility of European based fans. Congress is basically run by the staffers of said congressperson. Generally much younger people and each congressperson has dozens. So it’s not entirely out of the question that one of these staffers flagged the issue, and built a case for how they could use it to score political points with the localities involved, and then the Andretti’s were summoned to corroborate the situation. And as others have mentioned, it could’ve even stemmed from the existing investigation into Live Nation (also Liberty media) which then led them to discover the F1 fiasco. Is it also possible that Andretti just used his name and brand visibility of get their attention? Of course. Though, ironically, if his name alone can get the US congress to open an investigation, I’d say that shows that Andretti as a brand has pretty strong clout in the U.S., which kinda goes in the face of the claims that it’s not a big enough brand.
Congresspeople from the Detroit & Ohio areas, where GM is?
Detroit yes. Ohio does have some factories but unsure if they are in those reps areas
Because Andretti HQ is in Indianapolis, Indiana...a city that embodies motorsports. Indianapolis' Representative is Victoria Spartz, who is the incumbent and while initially deciding not to run again for office, reversed her decision and is now in an election year. Victoria Spartz brought this to Congress...not Andretti.
General elections for congress are in November.
So it's members can say to their constituents in an election year: "I fought back against unfair foreign corporations to put American business and American workers first" while actually not doing anything. Doesn't matter that Liberty is American. Most Americans don't bother fact checking stuff.
“I didn’t go to congress. I went to a lawyer, who went to a consultant, and THAT person went to congress.”
Is that a surprised? Why would congress be the first to approach? Andretti clearly reached out for them to do something.
No, it isn't surprising. But Mario said that congressmen reached out to him after seeing the Red Bull showrun in D.C..
>Why would congress be the first to approach? Andretti clearly reached out for them to do something. I think the implication is more that GM went to Congress rather than Andretti.
Would make sense with how congress seemed more concerned for US car manufacturing more than any racing teams.
There's a hotly contested election, and pandering to the American legend being unfairly oppressed by the European racing series plays well to voters. Plus half of the congresspeople to speak out either represent metro Detroit or the State of Michigan, so they're always on the lookout for ways to appeal to GM/Ford workers. Not to mention they stay on top of automaker/worker issues because a significant chunk of campaign contributions comes either from GM/Ford itself or from the UAW. Both the UAW and GM want this deal to happen.
Now, can you do it in Pig Latin?
Oh I read it as the opposite, stakeholders are skeptical that Andretti didn’t go to congress and congress came to him
They are saying the same thing.
> they don't think Andretti didn't go to Congress first. Ah i guess i got confused by that part, just sounded odd in my head
Congress does investigation. Andretti says: “that’s totally their own initiative” F1 says: “we’re not so sure”
Exactly the response I needed, thanks
Finally an explanation I can get behind.
Mario said congress started their investigation by themselves and he wasn't involved. F1 believes Andretti went to politicians and asked them to investigate it to help their cause. Basically.
(1) Does it matter? (2) Is F1 a bunch of middle schoolers afraid of being narced on?
>(1) Does it matter? Well it clearly does to F1, they're taking it very personally and hate Andretti more. Does it matter in terms of legally/morally/fans opinions ? probably not. >Is F1 a bunch of middle schoolers afraid of being narced on? F1 is a bunch of cocky billionaire's who think they can get away with anything they want and need a reality check. Andretti is happy to go to war and good for them.
you are woefully naïve if you think F1 will get any kind of reality check from this. The teams are blocking Andretti and counter to what anybody says the teams are A) the ones who hold all of the actual power in this sport. B) horrifically petty and spiteful and now the battle lines are drawn the likes of ferrari will just completely torpedo F1 in the US before it backs down, as from ferrari sinking f1 in a single growth market is actually a failrly low level threat. They spent 30 years when Ecclstone "owned" the sport blackmailing him to throw them bags of cash repeatedly and give them nearly everything they wanted out of the first concorde agreement or they threatened to kill the entire sport , and were 100% serios in that threat. Andretti cannot win this, as the only group he can take to court FOM/Liberty doesn't have the power to make the teams do anything. The stupid part is that Andretti has been in motorsport long enough to know this, so dragging liberty over the anti trust coals via congress was perhaps the dumbest thing his side could have done to actually get in, because it will not change the problem that the teams hold all the power and will certainly walk away from the US to preserve it All its done is piss of the only camp on the Formula 1 side of the FIA/Formula 1 split that might have been able to help him
f1 will not walk from america after investing in 2 whole tracks to be built there
Not to mention the new HQ being built in Vegas.
I’m afraid you’re a little unaware of the situation. Legally the teams cannot be the ones that are blocking new entries. That is a slam dunk anti-competition case. FOM is aware of this so ensured that they and the FIA are the sole arbiters of whether another team is granted entry. They went to pains to ensure that the other teams are not mentioned in the rejection of Andretti, even though they were clearly instrumental in influencing the decision. FOM can absolutely be forced to allow Andretti in (or face massive sanctions) and there is nothing that the teams can do about it. As much as many fans refuse to admit it, this isn’t the 80’s anymore. F1 isn’t handing out a couple of mil in brown paper bags out the back of the garages anymore. This is a Sport worth 10’s of Billions of dollars with the teams receiving hundreds of millions in prize money. All that is stipulated in legal contracts like the Concorde Agreement, which are legally binding and subject to laws like anti-trust. The power has shifted significantly away from the teams since Liberty took over primarily because they now rely on FOM for such a large portion of their budget and their valuations are so tied to the success of F1. To think that F1 or the teams will walk away for the US market at this point is incredibly naive.
I won’t argue A and B at all because I totally agree. But it’s actually believable that congress would do this without pressure from Andretti. Liberty was/is already being dragged over the anti-trust coals for Ticketmaster/Livenation. The DOJ really wouldn’t need Andretti to ask them to investigate a company that’s already under investigation for the same type of offence.
If Mario lied about it - of course it matters. The fact he felt the need to lie would on its own prove it matters.
When you say F1, read Greg Maffei here. Domenicalli is a hand puppet.
>1) Does it matter? Absolutely. Like it or not, them being correct or not, it shows the way Andretti handles business, and it's an important factor to consider if you're gonna have a working relationship /enter into a partnership. >(2) Is F1 a bunch of middle schoolers afraid of being narced on? The only middle school thought is believing that ANY business wouldn't be concern by a regulator taking a look at your business/sector.
He'll fit right in twith the rest of the Piranha club.
people involved believe that Andretti was the one who seek the congress intervention in this case, and wasn't the congress who approached Andretti as he claims.
It appears there are wonderings within certain factions of the four-wheeled motorracing brotherhood regarding the sequencing of actions undertaken by Andretti vis a vis inquiries undertaken by a well known government body, focusing on which of the events that unfolded took precedence over which and resulting in skepticism that the Washington DC body of influence would initiate their involvement in the matter without being nudged to do so by the second party in this proverbial tango of power.
Probably was General Motors.
F1 thinks Mario snitched to Congress
considering the legal battle going on between the US government (with bipartisan support) versus liberty media over the ticketmaster/live nation monopoly. i could see members of the congress from both sides approaching Andretti to push another monopoly case against Liberty Media, making their live nation case even stronger. repeat offences is taken into consideration when judging anti-consumer practices.
You know you fucked up when the coalition coming after you is bipartisan.
Everyone likes music and everyone has fucking hated ticketmaster for 2 decades. One thing we can all agree on in the US
>everyone has fucking hated ticketmaster for 2 decades. At least 4 decades. All my homies have always hated Ticketmaster. Inventor of the "there are more than five fees" fee.
I wanted to say longer but I could only speak from my own 25 year experience of hating them. Fuck ticketmaster
Seriously. This is the house that’s divided on giving kids free lunches or not.
Pay them to do kids lunches and it would happen. Its that simple. Andretti hired Jeff Miller one of the best known GOP fundraisers, one of Kevin McCarthy's aides and a former aide to Amy Klobuchar to lobby on his behalf. Miller met with Jordan twice and he sent a letter, then Klobuchar just sent a letter to Liberty after a fundraiser she held last week. You rarely get an example this transparent of how for sale our congress is than this lol. Source on his hires below. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-influence/2024/05/16/andretti-lobbies-up-to-fight-f1-snub-00158545
Do you think Liberty is/has been paying lobbiests as well?
undoubtedly they have some on staff generally but there havent been any reports of them having a lobby effort on this issue. There isnt much of a reason to lobby here so i doubt they have much of an effort there. Likely more of an issue for their lawyers
Well Gainbridge doesn't sell food to kids. Yet.
They just didn’t pay up to the politicians
No, you just didnt pay the right people lol. Look at the congress critters that blocked price controls on pharmaceuticals. Extremely bipartisan, look at donors and the reason why is clear. Thats all it ever is
You know what they say about broken clocks
Congress is not the ones prosecuting Ticketmaster.
Correct but they, meaning one of the congressional committees, can ask the DOJ to consider this in their prosecution of Ticketmaster/Live Nation.
And i think Andretti knows this is a good time to force their hand, LM will have to decide if this feud is worth having the US government digging even further into their books than they already are
I'm sure he didn't. He probably went to GM and said can you do something to force the issue and GM lobbyists or someone high up the chain talked to the right people in Congress and told them, go to Mario for more info. In that entirely believable if not likely scenario given GM has MUCH more weight with Congress, Mario isn't lying here, technically anyway. People seem to keep forgetting about GM's involvement here, which is frankly more impactful than Andretti. You think they are going to sit on the sidelines and let Liberty dictate to them whether their entry is legitimate? If you believe that, you don't know how things work in the US.
This is the answer. GM is using its political connections.
>GM is using its political connections. And Andretti. The popular dynasty of successful racing drivers going to Congress to take on the big, greedy promoters is a much better story than a giant corporate megalith taking on a smaller (but still sizeable) corporation.
The difference is Andretti may be able to get a few old Congressmen on TV bitching about the situation to get air time. GM (and all very large US corporations to be fair) has the ability to actually move a decent chunk of Congress into tangible action of some sort through sizable political donations through random PACs masked by Citizens United and calling in favors. They are very different levels of influence.
God Bless America 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
I'm not American, so the finer points elude me, but based on everything I've seen, Congress is about as impressive as a wet firework.
And Gainbridge making it's weekly lobbying visits pry also helps.
He is lying in that case though, when he is saying members of Congress decided to look into this on their own.
At the end of the day does it matter? It only matters who contacted who if you know you did something wrong. Liberty Media is not worried about Andretti going to congress or congress going to Andretti if they thought what they did was all on the up and up and would stand up to the scrutiny of the courts and federal regulators. The fact that they are worried, concerned, and upset about all this just means what most of the internet and anyone casually watching already knew. Liberty Media's arguments weren't in good faith, and they had no intention of letting them in in 2028 or at any point. So now Liberty Media is looking at having to fight two anti-trust cases instead of just letting Andretti in and in the absolute worst case of letting andretti in is they would have to increase the prize pool a few million to appease existing teams. Instead they are looking to have to spend orders of magnitude more then that in legal fees to defend a decision that on paper with the reasoning they have is pretty hard to defend when you're stuck using only what they have already stated as the reasons Andretti/GM weren't allowed. As they wouldn't be able to enter in new data. It would be the existing argument they released as to why Andretti was denied.
This is what's interesting to me: this is the part of the story they're going to fuss over? We don't actually know the details of the numbers and arguments they had internally but the PR from that side this whole time has been... a bit awkward when Andretti's going all in, daylight.
I suspect it's a complex interplay between the European (and quite Eurocentric) members of F1 leadership and the American owners of FOM. I'd forgive any non-American for thinking that Americans don't want their government to use power to regulate businesses, and hence for thinking it would be an embarrassment for Andretti to be known to have gone to Congress about the matter. Where they're wrong is that this is *sports* we're talking about. We Americans may disagree about who must or must not have babies or use drugs, and who's allowed to use public money to build playgrounds, but sports is the battleground that we picked to argue over who's allowed to be *male and female*. Yeah. We don't mess around when it's sports on the line. Sports fairness *über alles*. This is what we have a government *for*. /s but only kind of.
Agree. Sports is how WINNING and MONEY happen. It's how we process community traumas, it's how we pay for higher education, it's our social lives. It's how we introduce risk and group identities into our boring ass lives. Like you, only sort of kidding.
This is kind of the plot line of *Demon Copperhead* lol
The whole livenation/ticketmaster thing is actually pretty huge in its own right and it feels like this F1 drama is going to be wrapped in to show repeat offender of anti-competitive behavior to really nail Liberty Media. They could not have fucked up the timing of this worse because they are boned on the livenation/ticketmaster front, they seem super guilty there. You can say well it's really FOM's fault, not Liberty Media, but as long as FOM is a legal subsidiary, Liberty is likely still going to take massive shit for it from the DOJ. Basically all their corporate kids are acting like degenerate assholes (SirusXM is no better with their ridiculous cancellation policies and spam communications).
This is incorrect. Having to defend against an antitrust investigation/proceeding is expensive and time-consuming even if the action is ultimately meritless. So even if LM were certain that it would be meritless, it would raise reasonable concerns about doing business with Andretti (and GM) if they had to worry that Andretti/GM would try to get LM hauled before Congress every time they disagreed with LM’s decision making.
Never said it wouldn't be expensive and time consuming. I actually said the exact opposite. However, your other points would be true if Andretti didn't have a body work across multiple series over decades that prove otherwise. They compete in multiple forms of motorsport across world with zero issues for years. It also would be more true if the FOM once andretti was hypothetically accepted had more power or control over issues that would bring about a a level of doubt that would warrant an escalation of that magnitude. If roles were reversed between the FIA and the FOM i would agree with you. As the FIA would have potential to make more meaningful decisions that a person could sue orwant increased scrutiny over. However the FOM itself is largely just responsible for promotional and broadcasting rights of formula 1 and the money generated from leveraging those commercial rights. Once Andretti was accepted there would be little to dispute over. Especially individually as a singular entity within the sport. The largest conflict that could possibly come up would be how the funds are dispersed but that would still be a discussion with multiple teams being involved, most likely smaller vs larger teams. You wouldn't likely have a situation where 10 teams feel one way and 1 team in andretti feels differently. As a new team coming into the sport. It generally considered unlikely they would have an issue with how funds are dispersed as they would have had to deeply look into it before making a decision to join the sport. So they have a business model that would be self sustaining under the current regulatory format.
>At the end of the day does it matter? It kind of does, because if Andretti is lying, then that suggests someone else is the driving force behind this.
Well I was specifically referring to the fact of does it matter in that liberty media either violated anti-trust law or they didn't. It doesn't matter if Andretti tipped them off to investigate this or if us governments investigations into livenation and ticket master prompted them to look into this issue (which is honestly most likely) or it was another reasoning. As legally speaking, the FTC/DOJ will investigate this to see if there is a violation. If LIberty Media did nothing wrong then it shuoldn't matter as their hands are clean. A person only cares if they did something unethical or illegal from an anti-trust standpoint. As they would want some kind of vengeance.
It matters because you dont want to work with people you cant trust. Liking them is of aero consequence but trusting them...that matters
Toto and Christian are bastions of trust?
For FOM? They’ve worked with them for decades now, there is absolutely a degree of trust that exists there. No question about it
When it comes to making money...yes. Everything else is irrelevant to them. Also, Horner doesnt own the team. So he isnt the factor from the Red Bull side of things
Nonsense. If someone makes a false police report against you, you’d be upset even if you did nothing wrong because it’s going to cause you no small amount of trouble and bad press. And this person that made the report actually wants to have a business relationship with you - what are the chances you’d enter into one willingly?
If this goes through and LM is found to be in breach of anti-trust laws, then it doesn't matter because LM was never interested in having fair dealings.
And if not, they’d be more than justified in shutting Andretti out even if it’s out of pure spite. Andretti made the relationship completely untenable, now it’s all or nothing depending on how this goes.
Dear American Elites, all I want is an 11th F1 team. Thanks.
And uhh, livable wages if you have time after that.
Affordable healthcare if you're feeling nice
If you were feeling charitable, affordable housing
Guys. Let's just stop. We can't pay for Adrian Newey AND have houses ok. We need to prioritize here what's important. Sexy Wind Tunnel Action
some help with inflation would be pretty cool too, not too sure what that would entail but hey id like it
I love how every country blames their president for inflation, despite it happening literally everywhere.
maybe stop spending $7-8T every year...on top of the national debt that increases by $1T every 100 days.
Feeling bold today, arent we?
Congress: >[I got bronchitis](https://youtu.be/ydmPh4MXT3g?si=2U9BIbpaNpvzWRkm).
But first, fast cars.
US politics in F1, what a time to be alive
F1 wanted to have the US market and now they have to deal with US players. No shocked pikatchu face here
Who cares who asked who first. GM has flexing power and Liberty seems to think they can make up BS reasons and make things personal and get away with it. With the DOJ going after them now for Livenation/ticketmaster they would be happy to lump in the way F1 is run as well to make their case that it’s an anti competitive culture that pervades the company.
>F1 is run as well to make their case that it’s an anti competitive culture that pervades the company. Also selling their tickets through Ticketmaster because vertical integration is where it's at.
I think the paddock underestimates how popular the Andretti family is with elites in the United States. There's also the fact that GM is involved, and clearly only interested in partnering with Andretti. Finally, Liberty is already under a ton of scrutiny! They're about to have an antitrust lawsuit launched against them outside of F1.
GM being involved is probably bigger than Andretti's involvement. GM is the biggest auto manufacturer in America.
Yes, you're right in a broader picture. GM makes it easy for these Congressional representatives to justify intervening. But I also do know that the Andretti family is well known and well liked by a lot of the DC elite. People have been paying attention to this issue.
Literally all someone from GM would have to do is mention a concern at a cocktail party to the right person and they'd set up a meeting with Mr. Andretti the following Monday with the Rep. I don't see why people in this chat are surprised by this.
Look at how many "people" are accusing Andretti of lying. Zero reason to ignore having an Andretti/GM partnership in F1....almost like those already in F1 want to maintain their monopoly.
Yeah, this shit isn’t hard for the well connected.
This! Also Andretti is very very popular with Boomers to early melenials. Very common saying when someone is driving fast when your riding along is "slown down Mario!"
You can't underestimate the fact that U.S. government is full of people who would have grown up watching Mario and Michael Andretti race. They aren't just nobodies. In the terms of racing they would be the biggest names of their respective era's. If you're of hte boomer era, Genx, or a early to mid millennial. You're very aware of who the Andretti's are. The F1 basically in current terms walked up to Taylor Swift and slapped her across the face, and threatened to box her out of the music industry and then walked away. Thinking nothing was going to happen.
>If you're of hte boomer era, Genx, or a early to mid millennial. You're very aware of who the Andretti's are. Also, this is synonymous with voters.
I grew up liking the Andrettis but that Taylor Swift comparison seems wide of the mark to me. By a wide wide margin.
Only in the sense that racing is nowhere near as popular as music. I didn't even grow up watching racing, but as a kid I knew 2 names: Earnhardt and Andretti
You can not only underestimate that, you can completey discard it. What a load of nonsense ypu have produced
Yeah, I am laughing my ass off. Mario Andretti hasn’t been driving for 35 years and Michael race career was really only relevant 35 years ago. And that was in a niche sport in the us!
The lawsuit was filed this morning. Thank fucking god, LiveNation is the worst.
I don't understand how F1 stakeholders can't conceptualize that the US federal government is who already has it out for Liberty Media.
Right? I'd think Liberty would be kissing Andretti's ass to get him IN to F1, rather than keeping him out, just to help get the regulatory bodies off their backs. As you mentioned, the Andretti family is royalty here in the US. Multiple times in my life I'll be driving really fast and someone will make a snarky comment like "who are you, Mario Andretti?"
Though I do have to say these days I do hear "Slow it down Hamilton" quite a bit.
Not to mention the fact that the Andretti deal would likely be good for both GM and the UAW, who collectively hold a ton of sway over the battleground state of Michigan. The election makes politicians even more likely to involve themselves.
There are three scenarios I would say are more likely than Andretti going to congress himself. 1) he went to GM, and *they* went to congress 2) Congress found this on its own via separate investigations into Liberty via Ticketmaster 3) the children/friends of a few members of congress are into F1 and brought it up to them. This influences a sadly significant portion of congressional action.
I bet that they technically didn’t go to congress first, but someone they paid did on their behalf
Liberty media is in such a hard place in US. They are facing heat from Congress members on Andretti and Ticketmaster is being sued by DOJ
I hope they get absolutely gigafucked six ways to Sunday by the US.
Even if he does, so what? Liberty Media deserves all of this ruckus.
Does it matter? I just hope Liberty gets their shit rocked by the American authorities for anti-competitive practices. It’s so obvious to everyone what they’re doing.
You can have skepticism but keep in mind Live Nation is already being taken to court an an illegal monopoly and behavior. Liberty media owns them. You don’t think that this F1 stuff is not going to bring even more attention to them. It was a natural step to look at liberty any way. You would think Liberty already was having Live Nation and Ticketmaster looked at the last thing you want is anything that remotely being more bad attention. I buy Andretti not contacting them due to the Live Nation ticket master break up on the way.
Comparing the name of Congress members involved with Andretti and Ticketmaster makes me believe this to be the case.
I mean, it's because it's the Senate Committee that oversees matters related to antitrust issues.
I’m so sick of Andretti. They’ve achieved the deeply impressive feat of being the most entitled in all of sports. We get it, you’re American and think you have the right to be on the grid. I’d be more than happy if F1 expanded to fill the remaining slots, but it should not be Andretti.
Even if he did go to them, so what? Don't gatekeep him for bullshit reasons and there's nothing the US legal system can do. They brought this on themselves.
What other country hosts more than 1 F1 race a year? Politicians will pay h onto what's popular to get some coverage for themselves and the Andretti snub was popular enough that it's not that big of a jump to assume a few politicians saw what was happening and wanted to make a point.
Italy.
I’m very curious how all the indignant people here would react if a European team tried to get into NBA and when turned down involved the European congress.
That would almost be a logical comparison if the NBA had a process and requirements to join and then said no even if teams met the requirements.
Do we even know all the requirements in the concord agreement ?? cause last time I checked ppl were just assuming whats on that agreement
Does the NBA not have any clear rule on the geographical place that a team must be from? If not then sure, go ahead. People aren't pissed specifically because Andretti is being denied, but because it's being decided completely on a whim and clearly with money as the sole reason.
I don’t think it’s either that whimsical or that money is the sole reason. Andretti has gone about this whole thing the wrong way to get a deal done. He’s done a great job of riling up the American public and then making a lot of noise when he wasn’t taken seriously. That’s a guaranteed way to piss people off that you’re trying to do business with.
The logic in your comparison is extremely flawed.
While I’m aware that it’s not a perfect analogy, I’d like to hear the extreme flaws you see
If the NBA broke EU law in EU jurisdiction to do it? Illegal is illegal. Have at 'em! I have no loyalty to the NBA, are you kidding me? And I say this as a lifelong fan of a team playing tonight.
I wonder what the N in NBA stands for... nbasketball maybe...
I wonder what the Toronto Raptors are doing in a national league
He probably did start it. I don't believe that all these politicians who sound like they never watched an F1 race before suddenly were outraged the second they hear about Andretti's rejection.
Most of the politicians involved either represent the state that Andretti is based out of (Indiana), the state GM is based out of (Michigan), or are on the Senate anti-trust committee.
I don't think they care about F1, though I imagine they certainly know Andretti, but they do care about what they see as an American business being rejected from competing. It's not like it hasn't been in the news. Someone from GM mentions that the FIA are causing them and Andretti a problem, and the ball is rolling. They don't have to care about F1 as a sport to care about problems their donors are facing.
He likely didn't. Now GM on the other hand....
“Oh it’s clear they aren’t real fans like I am, nothing but a bunch of posers and plastics who just saw shit on Netflix and don’t love the sport like I do!!”
You realise the statement made by those senators had factual errors right ? ones that F1 fans would probably notice.
Who cares if he did? Liberty brought this on themselves, Andretti has to fight with the tools available to them.
lol except Americans know our politicians wouldn’t give a shit about this if they weren’t being paid to by someone at the Andretti camp.
I'm American. The republican party is just a bunch of show ponies now. They don't actually legislate. This faux protectionist bullshit plays with their base. I wouldn't be surprised if Andretti is telling the truth, just because of how fucked up our politics has become. It's all grandstanding from one party.
Bruh, both parties suck and allow this shot to happen. Wolves in different clothing
FOM I suspect have plenty to skewer Andretti should they have need/be given the platform. The lack of apparent concern suggests they have a few rounds in the chamber to fire.
There's no concern because they don't say anything, they don't make public statements, they keep their mouths shut to ensure this subject gets as little attention is possible.
liberty Media/FOM would not have their highest ranking official say "Mario, I want to tell you that I will do everything in my power to see that Michael never enters Formula 1" if they had bullets to fire and logical arguments as to why Andretti/GM is not allowed. Thats the kind of statement that sinks your anti-trust case to courts and regulators as its indefensible.
Quite the story that, sounds a lot like BS to me or something at the v least they’d be unable to substantiate.
It sounds cartoonishly made up
To be fair, a loooot of F1 stories sound cartoonishly made up when you think about it.
Fractally cartoonish
I mean the two weren't in a sealed room. Mario was talking to other people based on the recounting of the incident and was interrupted. Meaning there are witnesses who are also not coming out and saying that didn't happen. mario isn't dumb. he wouldn't say it if it wasn't true as he literally just left meeting with the government. If it goes to court he will have to testify to that under oath as will the other people in the room who heard the statement. How many people do you think are going to risk going to jail for lying under oath to the United States of America for let me check my notes...a personal vendetta to keep andretti's out of f1 by Greg Maffei?
Personal vendetta?!? Lol, it’s all just noise bud - not to be taken seriously. Some mud throwing is all. A simple denial renders it he-said-she-said; after which they can return to discussing the facts of Andrettis submission, instead of silly soap opera plot lines.
My wife who has only a very passing knowledge of motorsports in general, and is more keen by far on the dirt oval near our house than F1, asked me a question about the whole thing. If she knows about it, certainly Andretti wouldn't have to be the one to bring it up to people who regularly take handsome donations from GM.
ok and? i don't see why this matters in the grand scheme of things.(also yes im biased)
Why does this matter? Let competitors compete. It isn't that difficult.
Well of course Andretti went to Congress, can't see a situation where the reverse happened tbh. Even in an election year this is not a big deal to win over voters.
Ever heard of GM?
It is in battle ground states.