Cadillac Makes Some Necessary Noise at the Miami Formula 1 Race

You can’t blame Cadillac for wanting to take center stage at the Miami Grand Prix last weekend: After all, it’s the first of three U.S. races on the Formula 1 schedule, and South Florida is a good place to make a big splash.

Also, next time the F1 circus rolls into town, Cadillac won’t just be an appealing sideshow—the brand will have a couple of cars on the track, taking its place as the eleventh team in F1, which will have a 22-car grid next year instead of the semi-traditional 20 (F1 requires that each team field two cars).

Saturday night, Cadillac hosted a red-carpet gala at a Miami steakhouse, an event Formula1.com called “dazzling”. The team unveiled its logo, which the same Formula1.com story called “striking,” which is what you might say when you are shown a photo of a friend’s less-than-cute baby. The black-and-white logo, a Cadillac crest above type that spells out “CADILLAC FORMULA 1 TEAM,” looks more like a placeholder for the real logo, but this is it:

Perhaps the only real news revealed in Miami was at a press conference with General Motors President Mark Reuss, a race fan who has actively supported the effort for the F1 team, who said the initiative will proceed despite a big potential hit for GM from the proposed federal tariffs: “You probably would have seen over the last few days, we did earnings in the early part of the week, and then we came back and did the earnings review and guidance, and so in that second one, there’s about $5 billion of impact for us. But it’s not going to affect this project.”

Indeed, it has been a long and very expensive road to F1, with the project announced in early 2022, long before Cadillac signed up. It began, as you will likely recall, with ex-driver and IndyCar team owner Michael Andretti’s goal of heading an F1 team, going so far as to hire the technical help in Europe, and building a car to test in the wind tunnel, to show how serious he was. He enlisted his father, Mario, one of only two American F1 champions (the other was Phil Hill), and Cadillac came aboard to back the project.

Immediately, there were challenges, especially from the existing 10 teams, and it was understandable: Why cut the F1 prize-money pie 11 ways, instead of just 10? It cost Cadillac and the team a lot of money to warm the other teams up to their presence.

The powers behind F1 put one roadblock after another in front of Michael, and he dealt with a series of setbacks. Until he couldn’t. The message from F1 was clear: We want Cadillac, but we don’t want you. It did not help when, during the negotiations, Michael said F1’s resistance was “all about greed,” a comment he apologized for in a subsequent interview with Hagerty. Many casual fans in America were amazed to learn that F1 is not a democracy: After all, when new teams want to join NASCAR, IndyCar, IMSA or the NHRA, aren’t their checkbooks welcomed with open arms?

So Michael exited the project and has scarcely been heard from since; he’s apparently “enjoying retirement.” With Andretti Global out, affiliate partner TWG Global took control, headed by two billionaires: Guggenheim Partners CEO Mark Walter and businessman/film producer Thomas Tull. Dan Towriss, who had been a minority partner with Andretti, became CEO of Cadillac F1.

The team cut a deal with Ferrari to supply the powertrain, or “power unit and gearbox,” as Ferrari said it in the announcement of the multi-year deal. Besides Ferrari’s own team, Ferrari engines power Haas, the other U.S.-based F1 team, as well as Sauber, but that team will switch to Audi engines in 2026. Cadillac says it will have its own engines ready for 2029.

Ferrari is no longer quite at the sharp end of the stick with its team and engines. Ferrari’s own team has finished a best of third and a low of 10th in the six races it has contested this season—or five, actually, since both cars were disqualified for too-low weight (Charles Leclerc) and excessive wear on the rear skid block (Lewis Hamilton) in China. Still, Cadillac could do worse than have Ferrari as a partner.

So ostensibly everything is in place for Cadillac to join F1 beginning with the first race in 2026, presumably at the site of 2025’s opener, Melbourne, Australia, which was held March 26. It hasn’t been formally announced, but most likely the 2026 season will begin there on March 22. Cadillac and TWG insist that everything’s in place, though it was announced in Miami that the team has hired about 350 or 400 employees so far, with an ultimate target of about 1000.

One critical detail that hasn’t been decided is the drivers. Cadillac definitely needs a veteran who knows what a proper F1 car feels like, and knows the tracks F1 races on—that is a big requirement, since there are 24 of them. Odds are on Sergio Perez, from Mexico, who drove for Red Bull and has six F1 wins, and Valtteri Bottas, from Finland, who drove for Mercedes and has 10 wins. Both drivers are 35. Presently, Perez seems to be the favorite—he can likely bring his own sponsorship money, and he has massive support from Mexican fans. Some of those fans were vocal in Miami, standing outside the exclusive Cadillac event and shouting Perez’s nickname: “Checo, Checo, Checo!”

Since age 35 is nearing the sell-by date for F1, the other Cadillac driver is expected to be younger. IndyCar racer Colton Herta, who drives for Andretti, has repeatedly been mentioned as a candidate, but that seems less and less likely. As much as Cadillac would like an American racer, the cupboard is relatively bare.

They could bring on a young driver with some F1 experience who isn’t an American, but also hire a very young American, such as Zak Crawford, 20, to be, say, a reserve driver. Crawford raced karts here in the U.S., but began racing in Europe at age 9. He’s raced in multiple European formula car series, and currently has a developmental-driver contract with Aston Martin.

That’s a central problem with hiring a proper American F1 driver: To truly get noticed on an international stage, it’s almost mandatory that drivers must race in Europe, which often means that American drivers are virtual unknowns in their home country, such as Florida’s Logan Sargeant, who raced in F1 for Williams in 2023 and the first half of 2024. Cadillac could end up with a foreign driver who nonetheless has a large footprint in the U.S., like IndyCar champ Alex Palou of Spain.

There are still employees of Cadillac who remember the embarrassing attempt in 2000 when the manufacturer engineered a largely unprepared return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world’s premiere sports car endurance race. The effort was announced at the 1999 running of Le Mans, which I attended with Mercedes. I took a friend, who was a Cadillac executive, into Mercedes’ garage, and watched his eyeballs get big at the team’s opulent presence; the garage floors had actually been carpeted. “Do you think Cadillac is prepared to make this sort of investment?” I asked him. He didn’t answer.

In 2000, all three of their Northstar LMP cars ran into trouble, finishing 19th, 21st and 22nd. Down to two cars in 2001, one crashed, the other finished 15th. In 2002, they finished ninth and 12th, which was better, but at the end of that year, Cadillac gave up and cancelled the program. They had gone up against the best sports car teams in the world, and had fallen short.

Today, though, this is a different Cadillac. The brand’s current return to the top class at Le Mans has been much more measured and carefully developed, and its teams have proven that they belong, and ought to be a factor in the race next month. And Cadillac itself, with such world-class vehicles as the remarkable Celestiq and the Lyriq, has again cemented the brand’s place as one of the best premium brands, anywhere. Cadillac does not want to be embarrassed next March when they dive into Formula 1, but they—and their fans, and especially their critics—must be patient. In this modern era, nobody’s initial F1 race will put them on the top step of the podium.

It appears that Cadillac is doing everything right, though we’ll withhold final judgment until we see the driver lineup. But more importantly, we will finally have a true home team to cheer for, and hopefully someday the company can make news at the Miami Grand Prix with more than dazzling parties and striking logos.