US motorsports organisation Andretti are due to close an imminent takeover deal with Sauber Motosports who operates Alfa Romeo’s F1 team.
An investment company led by Michael Andretti looks set to take over a significant stake in Islero Investments. Islero Investmets, the company set up to take ownership of Sauber Motorsport, is owned by Longbow Finance: the group that bought Sauber back in 2016.
As reported via RacingNews365.com, Andretti could potentially spend some 350 million euro to take over both Sauber Motorsport and Sauber Engineering.
Andretti has previously expressed an interest in Formula 1 when they were one of the four parties interested in buying Racing Point (then Force India) back in 2020. Their initial bid of 28.5 million pounds fell short of what the administrators required with the sale ultimately going to the Racing Point consortium.
There is no official word from Andretti, who already runs IndyCar, Formula E, and Extreme E teams, however a spokesperson said: “As is no secret, Formula 1 has been of interest to Michael and the team for some time,” as quoted by RacingNews365.com.
“We’ve explored and come close on many options over the years, but we have nothing new to report.
“Our passion is racing, in all forms. Should a proper opportunity come along to take the Andretti name back to F1, we’d jump at it. But as of now, that opportunity has not fallen in our laps and our focus remains on our seven current disciplines of competition.”