Hold onto your pit boards—things are heating up off the track! Liberty Media, the commercial overlords of Formula 1, have found themselves under the watchful eye of the US Department of Justice. Why? Because they’ve been accused of putting up a roadblock in front of Andretti Global’s bid to join the grid. 

Here’s the lowdown: Andretti, with Cadillac in their corner promising to build an engine, got the FIA’s nod last November. The governing body was all set to welcome the American outfit with open arms. But the folks at F1 HQ? Not so much. They slammed the brakes on the whole idea, stating that Andretti’s entry wouldn’t “provide value to the Championship.” Now, let’s decode that—what they really mean is, “We don’t see enough dollar signs here.”

But wait, there’s more. F1 didn’t just stop at questioning Andretti’s financial worth. They went on to throw shade at the team’s potential competitiveness. The plan to roll out a car for 2025, just a year before the new 2026 regulations kick in, was branded as naive. According to F1, it was proof that Andretti didn’t grasp the full scale of what they were getting into. That’s a bit like telling a chef they don’t know their way around a kitchen.

And it’s not just the F1 brass who are twitchy about an extra team on the grid. The current teams aren’t exactly rolling out the welcome mat either. An 11th team means slicing the prize money pie into smaller pieces, and let’s face it, nobody’s eager to give up a chunk of their winnings.

Even FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the man who got the ball rolling on this process, has since suggested that Andretti might be better off buying an existing team rather than trying to start from scratch.

The plot thickened yesterday when CEO Greg Maffei confirmed that Liberty and F1—both registered in the US—are now under investigation by the DOJ. Maffei insists they’ve got nothing to hide and that they’ll cooperate fully with the probe. He also hinted that F1 isn’t completely closed to new teams, as long as the “circumstances” are right. 

So, is this about keeping the sport competitive, or just protecting the bottom line? The stewards are still deliberating.