Andretti Is Already Wind-Tunnel Testing for Its Unapproved F1 Program

Things are moving swiftly along for Andretti's F1 program with Cadillac, per a new report in The Athletic, enough that you might forget that the program is still technically barred from competition.

There have been serious investments from the Andretti/GM side of things, with a staff of "over 120, most of whom are on the technical team," per The Athletic, 50 of whom come from GM. Included in the 120 are a host of F1 veterans, including a technical director, head of aerodynamics, and chief designer.

The Athletic also shared a photo of Andretti's 60-percent-scale model undergoing testing at Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. (Remember when Toyota raced in F1?) It caught the eye of F1 aero expert Craig Scarborough:

As for the F1 side of the equation, there is still no approval for the team. If F1 keeps its drawbridge up, this will be one of the most advanced F1 projects to not reach the race track, though maybe not the top of the heap. Honda engineers somewhat infamously built two different working F1 cars in the Nineties as a feasibility exercise, another unraced F1 car in 1999, and was fairly far along with its 2009 hybrid car before pulling the plug on its racing efforts amidst the Recession. A year before running in the 2002 F1 season, the auto giant Toyota built a complete car just for testing purposes. All of these unraced projects did eventually produce cars that hit the track. Maybe things are not looking so bad for Andretti.

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