LEXINGTON, OHIO • Michael Andretti wants Formula One to believe that he should be the team waving the American flag in the world’s most popular motorsport series.

The meltdown of his flagship Indycar team at Midohio Sports Car Course can be his Netflix audition tape.

Andretti Autosport has been unsteady all season, the first with Romain Grosjean of F1 and “Drive to Survive” fame and last with Alexander Rossi, winner of the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 and Indycar’s least amused driver.

Grosjean is new to the team — he replaced popular Andretti stalwart Ryan Hunter-reay — and Andretti needs “The Phoenix” and his star power in the expansive Andretti multi-series lineup.

And Grosjean is legitimately a star. He was a featured driver on F1’s behind-the-scenes Netflix docudrama and an entire episode revolves around the near-fatal 2020 fire that ended his F1 career and brought him to the United States to race Indycar.

Rossi doesn’t like Grosjean.

That’s OK because Grosjean doesn’t like Rossi, either.

And it’s on Andretti to manage the situation and prevent his organization from embarrassing itself at a 60-year-old relic of a racetrack located in the middle of Ohio.

Rossi long ago decided this seventh season would be his last with Andretti, the owner who gambled on the Californian when he washed out of F1.

He is leaving for Arrow Mclaren SP and Andretti already has signed Kyle Kirkwood to replace him.

The smart play for Andretti would have been to squelch any tension on the roster immediately. After all, F1 is watching. Andretti has been working overtime trying to persuade F1 to expand its grid for a two-car effort from “Andretti Global.” A true American team, he’s argued, would bring new sponsorship wealth to a series rapidly growing throughout North America.

Most of the current F1 teams think Andretti is delusional. They don’t care about returning the Andretti name to F1 and most are already signing mega-million deals with North American-based companies. At Charlotte Douglas International Airport on Monday, the transportation hub of NASCAR featured F1 driver Lando Norris in an ad for Tumi in the main shopping artery.

Adding two cars to put the Andretti name on the grid is viewed by the majority of F1 teams as nothing but a dilution to their guaranteed earnings.

It’s up to Andretti to prove his value to these gatekeepers of the club he so desperately wants to join. And while Mid-ohio proved his organization packs all the action needed for a full “Drive to Survive” storyline, it couldn’t have been the look Andretti wants scrutinized.

Rossi wrecked Grosjean and rookie Devlin Defrancesco. Grosjean wrecked Colton Herta and challenged team orders to block traffic for Rossi. Indycar called avoidable contact penalties on both Grosjean and Rossi. Herta, in 15th, was the highest-finishing Andretti car.

It was so ugly that this is how Andretti Autosport summarized Sunday in its postrace news release: “With the drop of the green, drivers worked to advance in the field before a round of incidents amongst teammates cost valuable track positions. The melee brought about high tensions and lowered finishing results.”

That’s putting it mildly.