(Motorsport) Haas’ Gunther Steiner has said that an 11th team could make Formula 1 financially unstable and doesn’t see an ‘upside’ to Andretti joining as an 11th team. Andretti has confirmed plans to bring an “all American team” to Formula 1 after partnering with Cadillac and General Motors with the FIA welcoming an entry from the team in 2026. However, their arrival depends on approval from Formula 1 and the teams that are currently in it. 

Andretti have admitted that only McLaren and Alpine are “allies” who have backed their bid to enter Formula 1. Gunther Steiner said that Haas are currently the only ‘US’ Formula 1 team despite having their main car base in Banbury, UK and were against the entry of Andretti. He said “What upside is it bringing? There is just risk, no benefit. Five years ago, you could get teams for nothing, you could pick it up. Nobody wanted them and they went out of business.

“Now, all of a sudden, everybody wants a team. But it’s a lot of people that want to come in and the 10 teams which are here are all financially stable, all well set up. It’s a very good environment at the moment, no one is struggling. If you put an 11th team in and we get a little bit of a dip in the economy or something all of a sudden maybe people are maybe struggling to survive. Why take that risk if there is no upside? It’s not up to me to decide.”

As a response, Michael Andretti said “We check all the boxes. The only box we didn’t have checked when we were working on our entry was, we didn’t have an OEM behind us, but now we have GM and Cadillac behind us. They are going to bring a lot to the party to help us get a race car on track. We are very bullish at this moment.”

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