This may yet be the most difficult challenge yet for Andretti; although it has proven to the FIA that it has merit on sporting, technical, and financial grounds, thrashing out a deal with FOM will be tough given that the existing 10 teams will put the championship under pressure.
After all, the existing teams have their own vested interests, and have been conspicuously cool to the prospect of any new entrants under the current anti-dilution fee set out by the Concorde Agreement.
This is set at $200 million, a fee that a new team must pay in full to be admitted to the grid. This is then separated out between the existing teams, who receive $20m of that each. This fee is effectively a way of subsidising any potential losses to income through prize money, TV rights, and sponsorship that an 11th team may create.
Owing to the championship's growing popularity, the existing teams have been steadfast in their belief that the anti-dilution fee should be raised to circa $600m given the expanding value of each team.
Naturally, the existing teams operate within their own interests and any support of an 11th team would be anathema to them. To paraphrase the more open reactions from current team principals, some teams would be accepting of an additional entrant if it sufficiently "grows the pie"; that Andretti's inclusion adds to the overall F1 pot rather than chip away at other teams' sponsors.
To others, they believe that the only way to preserve F1's current equilibrium is for a new entrant to buy an existing team - and if an existing team isn't willing to sell, then that's simply hard luck. There have been more outrageous claims in opposition; one suggestion was that F1 simply couldn't fit another team into its current infrastructure and that there wasn't enough space in the paddock - all while a film crew acting as an 11th F1 team occupies an extra garage slot...
Andretti has already tried the purchase-a-team route, and was a hare's breadth from agreeing a deal to purchase Sauber in 2021 - but could not agree how much control the current shareholders would retain.
Source: Autosport