After nearly two years of negotiations, Cadillac looks set to join the F1 grid in 2026.
General Motors on Monday announced an agreement in principle with F1 to launch its Cadillac-branded team and a corresponding power unit program, although the latter may not be ready in time for Cadillac’s debut as F1’s 11th team.
GM is partnering with TWG Global, which also owns and operates multiple race teams in other disciplines, including Andretti Global, Wayne Taylor Racing, and Spire Motorsports. Mario Andretti, the last American F1 champion, will serve as director of the team’s board.
GM plans F1 power unit for Andretti Cadillac team
“My first love was Formula 1 and now—70 years later—the F1 paddock is still my happy place,” the 1978 champion said in a statement.
The drive of Mario Andretti and son Michael, who stepped down as head of Andretti Global in September, to get back into F1 helped launch the Cadillac F1 project. GM announced its intention to partner with Andretti Global on a Cadillac-branded F1 entry in Jan. 2023, confirming its power-unit project the following November.
The Cadillac-Andretti team was approved by the FIA, the sanctioning body for F1, but the project was then rejected for 2026 by F1 Management, the sport’s commercial rights holder. The door was left open for Cadillac to join the grid in 2028 if GM followed through on plans to build its own power unit by that time.
Andretti Global and Cadillac logos
Andretti and GM kept working on the F1 project even after the initial bid was rejected. GM claims that, since the F1 entry was first announced in Jan. 2023, it’s assembled teams working on “aerodynamics, chassis and component development, software, and vehicle dynamics simulation” spread across Fishers, Indiana; Charlotte, North Carolina; Warren, Michigan; and Silverstone, England.
GM also said it aspired to make Cadillac a full works team—one that manufactures both its own chassis and power unit—”by the end of the decade,” indicating the 2028 timeline for the power unit is still in effect. That would require Cadillac to purchase power units from another manufacturer for the 2026 and 2027 seasons. New rules coming into effect in 2026 maintain the format of a 1.6-liter turbo-hybrid V-6, but with reduced power from the engine and more reliance on the hybrid system.
If it makes it to the grid in 2026, Cadillac will be the first new F1 team since 2016, when Haas arrived. Haas is also U.S.-based, but it has downplayed its American roots in a way that Cadillac likely won’t. A proudly American team would be appropriate in an area of American ownership (F1 Management is a division of U.S. firm Liberty Media) that has already put three U.S. races on the F1 calendar.