"He has no reason to look down on us" - Toto Wolff's criticism over 11th F1 team is 'disrespectful', says Mario Andretti

Former F1 champion Mario Andretti has called out Mercedes boss Toto Wolff on his comments over Andretti Motorsports' interest in joining the grid. Mario Andretti and his son Michael Andretti's team has shown interest in joining F1 after achieving significant success in Indycar. However, the team appears to be facing hurdles as current F1 teams have shot down the idea of bringing an 11th team on the grid.

The former F1 driver has not taken too kindly to objections to Andretti Motorsports' inclusion in Formula 1 and even called out Toto Wolff for his "disrespectful" remarks. He said:

“Toto Wolff has spoken very openly about our credibility. However, he speaks to me in a different way. I find the criticism very disrespectful because we have been active in motorsport much longer than he has. I respect his success so far, but he has no reason to look down on us.”

Andretti said that the team was already in talks with the FIA and is currently waiting to receive the numbers that would allow them to join the sport. He also lamented that Bernie Ecclestone, the former Formula 1 supremo, was not there because things would have been handled much differently.

“We know it’s a sum in the region of $200 million. Now I guess they want more, but so far we are waiting to hear back. It’s bordering a bit on usury. With Bernie it would be different, Liberty gives the teams too much say.”

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Andretti says they deserve more respect than the F1 teams are showing them currently

Mario Andretti claims that there has been a lot of unnecessary scrutiny on the team before even being granted entry into the sport. There have been questions about the team's resources, funding, and even how it plans to be competitive in the sport. He believes the team deserves a lot more respect than what is being given to it right now.

He said:

“They always ask how we want to be competitive. I say: let that be our problem! You don’t know our preparations. We don’t need to sign any new people at all, we have absolutely experienced people who have the necessary knowledge. On the financial side, we have credible partners who are aware of the size of the project. We’ve been planning for a long time with our programme because it’s everything we want. We deserve more respect.”

The biggest hurdle in Andretti's path is the current F1 teams' reluctance to share their revenue with an extra team on the grid. It will be interesting to see how this issue gets resolved.