F1 coming to Vegas !

[Southwest Dave]

With the F1 GP owners/organisers (Liberty media) looking to grow the sport in the USA, it looks like we could see an American works team entering the pack for the 2026 season!

Formula 1 announced today that it has reached an agreement in principle with General Motors (GM) to support bringing GM/Cadillac as the 11th team to the Formula 1 grid in 2026.

Formula 1 has maintained a dialogue with General Motors, and its partners at TWG Global, regarding the viability of an entry following the commercial assessment and decision made by Formula 1 in January 2024.

Over the course of this year, they have achieved operational milestones and made clear their commitment to brand the eleventh team GM/Cadillac, and that GM will enter as an engine supplier at a later time. Formula 1 is therefore pleased to move forward with this application process and will provide further updates in due course.

It'll be interesting to watch a Cadillac attempting to take a corner at speed!;-) Haha

Dave

[Mark Sedenquist]

A Cadillac F-1 race car?

Seriously?

Interesting development.

Thanks for the report!

Mark

[Southwest Dave]

That was my first reaction Mark! It was breaking news so I had to check for myself rather than believing the report.

Dave

[Southwest Dave]

It seems a lot of the ground work was done by the Andretti family, the Father being Mario Andretti (who won the F1 Championship back in 1978.) F1 did not accept their (Andretti/Cadillac) package proposal to join the F1 line up, but enticed GM to join in and create a GM/Cadillac stable, with GM keen on supplying power units for the sport. (It all looks a bit complicated, but basically, the Andretti's found a way back into the sport by stepping back, but will remain a partner of the team, and Mario will have a roll to play in an advisory package)

To start the 2026 season GM will have to look for an engine supplier until they are ready to provide their own units. Ferrari look favourite to provide these at this point.

Dave

[Mark Sedenquist]

The engine is important, of course, but who is going to build the chassis and the rest of it for GM?

I drove the Strip portion (back straight-away) today and they are making significant inroads in restoring the Strip to the pre-race condition. It is kind of amazing to watch. Not the fastest way through town at the moment though. I think it took me about 20 minutes to drive past Caesars today. I wasn't in a hurry.

Mark

[Southwest Dave]

The engine is important, of course, but who is going to build the chassis and the rest of it for GM?

Mark

They have been building a team of race experts that I believe will work under the GM/Cadillac brand, but I don't think they will be working alongside the Escalade production line. ;-)
From one report.

Since GM’s bid to join F1 was announced in January 2023, Cadillac Formula 1 has assembled an experienced team to work on aerodynamics, chassis and component development, software, and vehicle dynamics simulation. The team has operations in Fishers, Indiana; Charlotte, North Carolina; Warren, Michigan; and Silverstone, England.

Top F1 teams can have close to 1000 employees, and spend $400 million per season to compete at the top!

Dave

[Mark Sedenquist]

So, this article published by AP on November 25th:

The 11th team on the F1 grid has been named Cadillac F1 (and, as you mentioned, the basic group was owned by Michael Andretti.)
"...be run by new Andretti Global majority owners Dan Towriss and Mark Walter. The team will use Ferrari engines its first two years until GM has a Cadillac engine built for competition in time for the 2028 season...."

This reminds me of the expansion fights that have occurred with USA sports. One can argue that this expansion to an eleventh team makes little sense for the health of the F1 franchise. There are some more interesting points about the infighting in this article, as well.

[Southwest Dave]

There has been quite a bit of unrest since Liberty Media took over the brand, all the way through to drivers who were not happy with the introduction of the Sprint race weekends. Other teams are unhappy about the dilution of income due to a 10 way split becoming 11. Reports are suggesting that GM motors will pay a $450 million dollar 'anti-dilution' fee to join the F1 grid.

Here in the UK global investments are sucking the joy out of our love of the game of football and our teams. Money talks!

Dave