First, the 60-year-old tried to buy the Sauber team last year. When that fell through, Andretti announced plans to set up his own team. That, too, was met with reluctance from F1's power brokers, who were not convinced the project was solid enough to add the required value to a sport that is experiencing a significant growth in global interest, especially in the USA.
Andretti was effectively told: "Go away and find a car manufacturer to support your bid, and we'll look at it again."
So he did. He landed a big one - American icon General Motors, formerly the world's biggest car company and still one of the largest, announced last week that it would join forces with Andretti using its luxury brand Cadillac.
Andretti now feels he has done enough, and the FIA also sounded convinced, saying in a statement last week that it was "particularly pleasing to have interest from two iconic brands."
But F1 was lukewarm. It talked about the "great interest in the F1 project at this time, with a number of conversations continuing that are not as visible as others", adding: "Any new entrant request requires the agreement of both F1 and the FIA."
On Sunday, Ben Sulaymen put out another statement on Twitter.
"It is surprising that there has been some adverse reaction to the Cadillac and Andretti Global news," he wrote.
"We should be encouraging prospective entries from global manufacturers like GM and thoroughbred racers like Andretti and others."
The odd thing about this was that there had not been any "adverse reaction" to the Andretti news - at least not publicly.
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But many stakeholders in F1 have concerns as to whether, if a new team is to enter F1, this is the right one.
The key phrase that keeps coming up is whether Andretti would "add value" to F1? This is about competitiveness and investment.
