Cadillac Is Joining F1 And There’s Nothing You Can Do About It

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)