Andretti looks back on the failure of the Sauber takeover

While everything seemed practically done for the Andretti group to acquire at least 80% of Sauber Motorsport AG and Sauber Engineering, united under the supervision of Islero Investments, and the announcement was even expected for the United States Grand Prix on Last October 24, the affair finally came to light.

Why ? " The guarantee of $50 million per year for five years – payable in advance – requested by the Swedish food packaging magnate would, according to some speculations, have forced the American to sheathe his checkbook,” as we explain to you in AUTOhebdo No. 2336.

Asked to react to the failure of negotiations after the officialization of the arrival of Devlin DeFrancesco in the ranks of Andretti in IndyCar for 2022, Michael Andretti wanted to clarify things regarding the thorny issue of the Sauber takeover. “ I want to put an end to certain rumors announcing that an agreement was not reached for financial reasons, launched from the outset the boss of the American structure. This is far from the truth, it has nothing to do with it. It fell apart due to governance problems during the final hours of the negotiations. That's what killed the deal. I always said that if the deal wasn't good, we weren't going to try it. Ultimately it wasn't so we continue to look for other opportunities. Unfortunately, at the last minute, blocking points appeared in terms of the organization of the future structure. We therefore had to withdraw from the negotiations because we could not accept the conditions."

Touched but not sunk, Michael Andretti keeps his eyes “ open » in case a new buyout opportunity presents his organization and him in the future. “ We are always looking for opportunities in F1 but not only in other formulas or in other types of races. This is what we do »