Well it’s finally happened: GM/Cadillac and the enduring American spirit is coming to Formula 1. If it feels like you’ve been hearing about F1 and GM for a long time now, you aren’t losing your mind. This whole process pretty much kicked off in October 2023, when F1’s governing body, the FIA, “concluded that Andretti Formula Racing LLC will proceed to the next stage of the application process to enter Formula 1.”
But wait Griffin, that clearly says Andretti, not Cadillac, what the heck are you talking about? Buckle up, because it got crazy from here.
To join the illustrious world of Formula 1, you need to get approval from the FIA to even be considered to join the series, and that approval is forwarded off to the commercial rights holder, Liberty Media, who ultimately decides whether or not it’s a go for the new outfit. Arguments against a new team largely boil down to money, as there’d now be 11 teams splitting the final pot as opposed to the current 10.
As the US continues to be a massively growing market for F1, efforts to appeal to Americans grew, with 2022 seeing the Miami Grand Prix’s introduction, and 2023 giving us both the inaugural Las Vegas Grand Prix and an American driver in Logan Sargeant (who was cut from his team mid-season due to lackluster performance).
The final puzzle piece needed to get a real American presence in F1 was an American team (because let’s face it, nobody really cares much about Haas), but Liberty Media thought otherwise:
“While the Andretti name carries some recognition for F1 fans, our research indicates that F1 would bring value to the Andretti brand rather than the other way around.”
Ouch.
On January 31, 2024, F1 issued the statement above that pretty comprehensively tore the Andretti bid to shreds, with questionable arguments made throughout.
“The presence of an 11th team would not, on its own, provide value to the Championship.” Heard, but, again, you want to grow in America and there are three races here, how does an American team not benefit you?
“The need for any new team to take a compulsory power unit supply, potentially over a period of several seasons, would be damaging to the prestige and standing of the Championship.” Williams, McLaren, and Aston Martin buy engines from Mercedes; VCARB uses RedBull Honda’s; Sauber and Haas use Ferrari’s mill. Why are you mad at Andretti for being a customer team?
“An 11th team would place an operational burden on race promoters,” and yet the tracks are required to have facilities for up to 26 cars, or 13 teams.
As the list goes on, it becomes pretty clear to fans that Liberty Media/F1 were anti-Andretti’s bid for some reason, with many on social media commenting about wanting American money, but not actually including Americans in the party.
The application had a lifeline though: if Andretti brought in GM as a power supplier like they implied, then F1 would come back to the table and talk shop. Talks stalled, with the next news on the bid coming in May 2024 when six US Senators called on the Department of Justice to investigate why the hell Andretti was rejected, citing concerns about anti-trust practices.
It was getting real and fast.
So far, no real developments have come from that investigation, and the next major bit of news came in September when it was announced that Michael Andretti was stepping away from his ownership stake in Andretti Global.
With all these ups and downs in this last year, many fans came to the conclusion that Liberty Media just had a personal grudge against Michael considering the bid was so quickly approved after he stepped away. Will we get confirmation of that? Certainly not. But it’s definitely something to ponder.
Why Should We Care?
Well, as the resident GM lover of The Autopian and a man who will always advocate that the only car you need in this world is a clean C6 Corvette, I can tell you that the reason you should care is because GM frickin’ rocks.
Just look at their V-Series R endurance car as it kicks from electric to combustion. The sound of its crossplane crank in a naturally aspirated V8 has sent shivers down the spines of motorsports lovers everywhere.
Speaking from personal experience as an occasional motorsports photographer who’s seen the car in person multiple times, I can attest that the car is orders of magnitude louder than the rest of the field, hearing it damn near three turns away while the others you only hear when it’s getting close. Its presence is astounding.
Sure, the cars have had some bad luck and only have four wins to their name, but they also have 11 podiums, five poles, six fastest laps, and they won the IMSA Team, Constructor, and Drivers’ championship in its first year of competition.
Obviously, endurance racing is dramatically different than F1, wherein endurance allows you to have pretty open engine and aero requirements while F1 requires you to be within very strict parameters, but it’s GM; the same freaks that are bold enough to bring you a 1,000 horsepower machine for likely a quarter of the price of its closest competition. Have faith.
Who Are Drivers?
Now this is pure speculation that remains to be seen, but they’ve got a good crop of drivers in their stable already.
Within their immediate IndyCar family, they’ve got Americans Colton Herta and Kyle Kirkwood ready to go, as well as their third driver Marcus Ericsson, who’s already raced (rather unremarkably) in F1.
Herta is the likely favorite, with Red Bull pushing to get him into F1 for 2023 on their sister team so long as he got the required super license points, which ultimately failed.
Outside of Andretti’s own IndyCar boys, maybe they make an attempt to poach 3x Indy champ Alex Palou or they go for their huge crop of endurance guys. We don’t have the answer for this, only a lot of thoughts and speculation, but having a big manufacturer like GM joining the “pinnacle of motorsport” will surely have a bunch of people chomping at the bit to join the fun.
It’s a great day to be American.
(Image Credits: Griffin Riley, Cadillac)
This will sell more Lyriqs and XT4s?
Did this render come straight from Cadillac? Because they used the old GM logo.
Make it a Pontiac you cowards. The logo fits the nose better
OH MAN I don’t care!
I just hope this doesn’t result in GM sunsetting the endurance program. Love what top level endurance has become in this LMDh/Hypercar era. Yeah, competitive balance is still an issue, but it feels so much more meaningful when 10+ teams are theoretically challenging in the class….
I hope this is an opportunity for Bottas to make comeback! I know this isn’t any real argument, but as a Finn and a lifelong F1 fan it just feels wrong not having any Finns driving next year when there has been some Finn in the series every season literally all my lifetime.
I’m happy it’s official, but GM has been pretty confident since they were doing sim testing and building F1-specific sections in the tech center in Charlotte for the last two years. But I am also a little worried they are too late in the cycle, and by the time this entity is competitive, there will be pressure to shut it down. Even so, it can be a launch pad for talented Americans to get a real shot in F1.
It’s weird about F1, even with all the enthusiasm. It seems OEMs can justify long tenures in NASCAR, Indycar, Rally, and GT Sportscars, but when it comes to F1, the budgets are just big enough to have boardrooms get all serious-faced and start asking questions about the actual return at some point.
Luckily they have the budget cap nowadays, so Toyota-esque situation of pouring something like half a billion annually with no major results isn’t so likely. Also now when F1 teams are actually worth real money, an F1 team might be seen more as an asset than just a black hole to pour money into.
The numbers are based on speculation but I’m pretty sure teams are actually money making ventures under the current budget caps. The teams typically keep those numbers under wraps, hence it being based on “educated speculation”.
I know, it’s the opposite of how racing typically works but I recall every team stating that they were able to spend to the cap without any FIA awards money. In the case of the team that wins the Constructors’ championship, the FIA prize money is almost the same (possibly more this season, the exact figures are typically kept quiet) as the spending cap.
In light of that, GM could possibly justify the spending by turning their R&D into a profit venture. This is all based on creative corporate math.
I did a bit of looking on engine costs. It looks like each team supplied would be about $50M per season (assuming the power unit caps) with the supplier having a development spending cap of $95M/season.
Since GM would be selling the engines to the F1 team, they’d be halfway to breaking even on their R&D by supplying one team. If they’re able to secure a second team, they’d be in the black from a cost standpoint. I don’t think that would be a very difficult proposition to justify when you consider GM would be gaining valuable technical knowledge from the program while having the costs significantly offset.
In a very basic amateur analysis….3 of the above you list at least resemble door-bangers, so GM can justify both name and specific model recognition. Indycar does not, but also has stability and minimal investment long term considering they’ve been running basically the same car/drivetrain for over a decade (ignoring the short-lived aero-kit era). I’d be curious to see the YOY cost outlay for GM over that time.
F1, on the other hand, is guaranteed to always be costly, and has name recognition alone. For a company whose racing efforts were long based on the “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday” model, I’m sure it has been hard to justify until the confluence of increased US and global F1 interest, new regulations in ’26, and a field that looks more level than ever (although still no where near parity).
That said, this is the same company that bought primetime ad-space on Man U’s kit then promptly pulled the brand from Europe before the deal kicked in, so……
And side-note, I’m also a bit shocked they ended the factory Corvette endurance program while continuing the Cadillac LMDh program. Granted, the latter isn’t a factory entry but still…..
“ you want to grow in America and there are three races here, ”
Six.
There are six races in America. Three in the United States, three in the Un-United States.
Four American drivers in F1 this year too.
America is a continent to readers in every country except one.
If you want to be pedantic, then it’s two continents. Otherwise, the conventional usage wins out. “American” has been applied to residents of the US by themselves and by others for longer than the country has been a country. Back when Mexicans were Spanish and Canadians were British.
Nobody wants to be pedantic, it’s a curse.
James May would like to have a word
He’d find being pedantic a nightmare if he weren’t inherently likeable.
I can basically guarantee you, if you asked Lance Stroll, “Are you American?” he would say something like, “No, I’m Canadian.” If you asked Perez if he was American, he’d say, “No, I’m Mexican.” If you asked Colapinto if he was American, he’d say, “No, I’m Argentinian.” The only one that would say he was American, is Sargeant.
I tend to claim to be British. It doesn’t stop me also being European though.
Which doesn’t negate what I said…
No it doesn’t, and I agreed I’d do the same thing.
I mistook what you said. Ok. I’d still (mildly) argue that it’s probably more common for someone from Britain, France, Germany or other country on the European continent to call themselves European than it is someone from the Americas to consider themselves “American” simply because it is so common for “American” to refer to people from the US.
Like you said, sure, Perez is from Mexico which is in the Americas so he is American, but it’s not commonly thought of or used that way.
Part of it is also because of lack of a unifying identity across the Americas. North America is very culturally similar, but it wildly different than South America; plus it’s simply a long way apart. Europe is a lot smaller, and a lot more compact. And despite cultural differences, there’s been many significant historical events that create a sense of unity, as well as the EU itself (which yes, I know doesn’t apply to all of Europe) that create a united identity on some level.
Nothing unites like millennia of being at war with each other.
I used to be European, but now I’m just British 🙁
We’re still European, just not in a way that makes financial sense like it used to.
Worth it for all those new hospitals…
Maybe you need to take the BBC’s distinction of how to split it.
There’s US & Canada on one end, and Latin America on the other. The former drops any reference to America (even the “A” from USA is missing).
For an organization that loves to be pedantic on so many topics, that arbitrary split irks me something fierce.
Standards have fallen severely at the BBC.
If you own a TV in the UK you have to pay £169.50 every year that goes to the BBC so they can provide great content like 15 different regional weather forecasts for a country that’s only a few hundred miles across.
That’s because the BBC has been focusing more on online content and cultivating British talent that can be dispersed to other mediums. They’re more like a production agency than a television and radio broadcaster these days. Whether that’s a good or a bad thing…
It’s bad. In my opinion as someone who has to pay a very specific tax to fund it and gets no say in how it’s run.
You can own a TV and not pay the license fee, you just have to be ready to constantly explain to the TV licensing bailiffs that you don’t use the TV to watch any broadcast TV, and you don’t use iPlayer either. It’s a faff, but it’s entirely legal.
The weather is frequently wildly different depending on which tiny bit of the UK you are in though. Swaths of the country have been underwater last weekend, and are now a half-drowned, mud-covered shit show, whereas what would be an inconsequential commute away to the average American, it was quite a nice day, all told. Our weather is fucking stupid.
It’s nearly always wetter in the West and colder in the North. With a HD TV the national forecast map gives plenty of detail.
My entire lifetime TV Licence Tax contribution gets spunked away in less than a week of local weather reports. Or a day if there’s a flood/flower show/tennis and they feel the need to send weather teams to location.
Some sources are claiming that the “Cadillac” will use Ferrari engines in their F-1 car, at least for the first season. That takes a little of the shine off, at least for me.
Dan Gurney and his Eagle-Weslake get the honor of being the first American F-1 effort 60 years ago.
Of course it was a little easier for Dan: all he had to do was get the financing and supervise the design and construction, develop and race his cars, without putting up piles of money to feed the F-1 Greed Machine.
Why? It takes years to fully develop an engine. Their entire intention is to be an engine supplier, but they simply can’t make it soon enough. Having to be a engine customer for a year means nothing.
As someone local to COTA and a native of this third-coast state, I demand a slab corral at F1 next year. Better yet, make the drivers’ parade a slab parade. Get Paul Wall to throw the checkered flag. Lean into it, Cadillac. (Pun not intended but does inadvertently work.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZAYzLjQAd4
I thought the teams wanted to push them off until the next concorde agreement, which will definitely include a much higher buy-in amount for new teams.
They are reportedly paying a $450M anti-dilution fee. The concorde agreement suggests it should have only been $200M.
That being said, crazy that GM is simultaneously laying people off, but they can afford this.
I know the timing isn’t optimal, but GM made decision way earlier and them being accepted in now wasn’t just in their hands.
So which organization is more corrupt, FIFA or F1?
F1 hasn’t given us the cinematic magnum opus that is United Passions, so there’s that.
I almost feel bad for Tim Roth whenever I’m reminded that this exists. Then it hits me that he was most likely paid handsomely for it, and I’m like “good for him”.
Every great actor must have a few stinkers under his belt.
See: Raul Julia in Overdrawn at the Memory Bank and Street Fighter
I mean, more power to them if they can make bank off of some shitty idea from producers. Also, big budget stinkers mean lots of jobs for lots of people, no matter how hard they end up flopping. It’s a subtle form of redistribution of wealth.
I fuckin love Street Fighter. Tho a goodly amount of the reason why is that Raul Julia is in it.
Governing bodies are notorious for being hotbeds of corruption. If you haven’t done so, you should definitely read up on the Union Cycliste Internationale’s history of covering up bad actors/shady practices. It’s far from just Lance Armstrong and the EPO era.
FIA FIFA & IOC all have same corrupt, parasitic business model.
Hey, look, a landing spot for all those people GM just laid off! Oh, wait…
Seriously, how shitty is your corporate strategy team that you don’t understand the optics of laying off a bunch of people because your EV bet hasn’t paid off (but while you’re still raking money in hand over fist) and then, not even a week later (and on the eve of Thanksgiving, to boot), announcing this vanity project?
I don’t have a problem with expanding the grid (even though the Americanization of F1 is growing tiresome at this point), but, for fuck’s sake, timing is a thing, people.
I think you need to accept that GM isn’t really in control of when they get approved to run F1. This effort started two years ago. GM signed up as a power unit supplier this time last year.
Yeah, I’m sure waiting a whole week would have totally ruined it for them.
I’m sure everyone lost their job would’ve said that waiting a week would’ve made all the difference.
Again, this project has been going on for years.
I’m sure they wouldn’t. But there’s something to be said for decorum. Although, whom am I kidding, look whom we just elected President (again).
The fact that this project has been going on for years is irrelevant. In fact, it serves my point more than it does yours.
Does this mean they will now go back to building proper land yachts?
The Gigantiq (that’s it’s real name, isn’t it -that silly fastback thing) isn’t a proper land yacht? Sure looks like one to me.
*crying while pounding my fists on the table* “This should have been Oldsmobile, damnit!!!”
It was obvious from the beginning that Andretti wasn’t going to provide enough value for the other teams to want to split their pot. GM is a much better trade off.
GM was already involved. The thing that changed is Renault ended their engine program.
This is still basically the same exact entrant as before, but Michael Andretti is far removed. It still uses Andretti’s UK facilities, and lots of other Andretti Global staffing/members.
Herta isn’t even the best driver on Andretti’s IndyCar team, I dont understand the hype around him. I’d give that seat to Kirkwood before Herta, but it’s a moot point; unless one of them wins the IndyCar crown next season (laughs in Palou), neither of them will have enough SuperLicence points anyway.
Still an awesome development, but man, Michael sure must have pissed off the wrong people at some point.
I think it’s just that there’s so much raw talent in Herta that shows his good days are incredible, but he definitely has rough edges and over drives himself too much and too often. I love Kirkwood but I feel like he would need some more time to become a name outside of Indy before that move could be made, great as he is.
You say “there is nothing we can do about it”…. why would we want to do anything about it? Do we have to give them a taxpayer funded bailout if they suck?
Seems like the worst case is another team to follow on that netflix show!
Sainz might be a good grab for 2026 to put in one of the seats
Not a bad thought! I think they’d realistically stick to the Formula family of drivers, as Andretti isn’t really attached anymore so there’s no need to go with any of their Indy/endurance people and the WEC/IMSA guys could be a tough argument because they often tend to be older (while F1 is signing kids like Antonelli that are freshly 18). Definitely excited to see what’s up
Ideally you want a fast and experienced vet and a young gun, so Sonny Hayes and Joshua Pearce
I can’t believe Sainz is discarded so often. Daniel Ricciardo took his seat twice.
Sainz has only been discarded twice; first from Toro Rosso and second from Ferrari. Even the Toro Rosso situation was a bit weird because he was “loaned” to Renault. His current case of being discarded is a bit obvious because Ferrari got Lewis Hamilton. Sure, Hamilton is past his prime, but he’s still better than Sainz.
Sainz chose to leave Renault to McLaren, and then he chose to leave McLaren to go to Ferrari.
The most amazing thing about Sainz is how he’s going to end up at Williams. While I just said he’s no Hamilton, he’s certainly deserving of a better seat than Williams.