A US$450 million entry fee, a vetoed first attempt, Ferrari engines until 2029 and a factory in North Carolina: how the eleventh team got onto the grid.
Cadillac became the eleventh Formula 1 team in 2026 after General Motors and TWG Motorsports won final approval in March 2025 and paid a US$450 million fee. Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas drive Ferrari-powered cars until GM plans to start building engines in 2029.
General Motors handed over a US$450 million expansion fee to put Cadillac on the Formula 1 grid, more than double the figure first demanded. That bought the eleventh place on the grid, the first debutant since Haas in 2016, and a commitment to build its own engines from 2029.
How did Cadillac become the eleventh F1 team?
It took two attempts and a change of owner. General Motors and Andretti Global announced a joint bid in January 2023. The FIA approved it, but the commercial rights holder, the Formula One Group, vetoed it. A reworked entry under the TWG Motorsports banner won final approval in March 2025, which let Cadillac put its name to the newest Concorde Agreement.
- January 2023: GM and Andretti Global, then led by Michael Andretti, announce plans to enter the Cadillac brand.
- November 2024: TWG Global takes over the business side and the Formula One Group tentatively approves Cadillac for 2026.
- December 2024: Graeme Lowdon is hired as team principal.
- March 2025: final approval confirms Cadillac as the championship's eleventh team.
- August 2025: Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas are named as the first drivers.
- November: Perez makes the team's testing debut at Imola in a blank-liveried Ferrari SF-23.
- 2026: Cadillac races for the first time.
No independent constructor had arrived on the grid since Haas in 2016. Cadillac races under an American licence, and its engine plan is the unusual part: GM is expected to start building power units from 2029.
In the end GM did what the Formula One Group had asked
Why did Formula 1 say no at first?
The Formula One Group explained that the answer could change if GM agreed to build Formula 1 engines. The FIA had already approved the bid, so the veto came from the commercial side of the sport, not the governing body, and it turned a team application into an engine commitment.
Andretti did not stop. It kept building the team and its operations, working in Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, a facility McLaren had just left. Then, in November 2024, after a prolonged falling-out between Michael Andretti and the Formula One Group, a sponsor of Andretti Global, TWG Global, announced under Mark Walter that it would run the business side: sponsorship, infrastructure planning and organisational growth.
Michael Andretti stayed on as an adviser and his father Mario joined the board of directors. The British subsidiary dropped the Andretti Racing name for Cadillac, and eventually became TWG Cadillac Formula 1 Team Ltd. In the end GM did what the Formula One Group had asked: it announced that it would make engines for Cadillac from the 2029 season, and until then the team would race with Ferrari engines.
Who is behind Cadillac F1?
General Motors works with TWG Motorsports, the parent company of Andretti Global, through TWG's British subsidiary. TWG Global is the holding company of Mark Walter, the lead owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, which bought Andretti's team in 2024. Dan Towriss, chief executive of TWG Motorsports, oversees the team principal.
Andretti Global has a long American racing record, and some famous names run through it. Jacques Villeneuve won the 1995 Indianapolis 500 and the CART title with Team Green, the forerunner. Dan Wheldon won the 2005 Indianapolis 500 and that year's IndyCar title for Andretti Green Racing, and Ryan Hunter-Reay took the 2012 championship and the 2014 Indianapolis 500 after the team had become Andretti Autosport. It began as Forsythe/Green Racing in 1993, entered CART the following year and took the name Andretti Green Racing in 2002, after Michael Andretti bought a stake. Its tally includes six Indianapolis 500 wins, the 1995 CART title, four IndyCar championships and the Formula E drivers' title for 2022 to 2023. In September 2023 it restructured in pursuit of a Formula 1 entry and rebranded as Andretti Global.
Why did General Motors join Formula 1?
Observers have framed the project as a bid to give American interests a bigger role at the top of motorsport. Team representatives say their priorities are community engagement, building a skilled workforce and staying competitive over the long run, ahead of quick marketing wins.
The context is a company of scale. GM has led American automakers by sales without interruption, and for 77 years it was the biggest in the world, until Toyota took the title in 2008. It owns Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac, ranked 25th among American companies on the Fortune 500 by revenue as of 2024, and has a long motorsport thread. When the Indianapolis 500 counted towards the World Championship, a Chevrolet-engined Silnes (Gordon Reid, 1951) and Cadillac-engined Kurtis Kraft cars (Johnny Fedricks in 1952, Bill Homeier in 1953) all tried and failed to qualify. Its engine designers also have a pedigree on the road: in 1962 the Oldsmobile Cutlass Turbo-Jetfire became the first turbocharged production car in the world.
GM's links with Andretti on the engine side are not new either. After a deal with Chevrolet, a GM brand, the team ran Chevrolet engines in 2012, the year Hunter-Reay won the IndyCar title, and it returned to full-works Honda power in 2014.
The commercial route also mattered. The Formula One Group made engine manufacturing the condition for its approval, so the engine programme is part of the price of entry, alongside the US$450 million fee. GM said in 2021 that it intended to end production of combustion-engined vehicles by 2035, though most of those plans were pulled back in 2025.
Who drives for Cadillac?
Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas, both described as former runners-up in the World Drivers' Championship. Cadillac announced them in August 2025 as its first line-up, choosing experience over American candidates like Colton Herta and Josef Newgarden. Zhou Guanyu, Bottas' former Sauber teammate, joined in January 2026 as reserve.
The choice settled a public question. In March 2025 Lowdon said he would hire on merit, while adding that he could see nothing to stop an American winning a seat on those terms. Mario Andretti had said the idea was an experienced driver alongside a young American, probably Herta. Herta instead took a test driver role, moving from IndyCar to FIA Formula 2 in 2026 with Cadillac's backing.
Alec Udell, Charlie Eastwood, Pietro Fittipaldi and Simon Pagenaud share the simulator work.
Who runs the team?
Marcin Budkowski became team principal on 12 August 2026, replacing Graeme Lowdon, who had been hired in December 2024. Lowdon, a former chief executive of Virgin and Marussia, had served under Dan Towriss. The change came within the first season, a sign of how much of the organisation is still being assembled.
The technical staff leans on experience from elsewhere on the grid. Alumni of the team once based at Enstone hold senior roles: Pat Symonds as Formula One chief technical officer, Rob White as operations officer, Nick Chester as technical director, Jon Tomlinson in aerodynamics and Naoki Tokunaga as an adviser. Xavi Marcos, a former Ferrari race engineer, is chief race engineer.
More names arrived on 24 September 2026. Craig Skinner, formerly Chief Designer at Red Bull Racing, became Chief Development Engineer. Eric Blandin, who had been Aston Martin's aerodynamics chief and deputy technical director, joined as Head of Aerodynamics, after earlier posts at Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes. Tim Lean became Chief Engineer after spells at Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren.
What engine does Cadillac use, and when does GM build its own?
Cadillac uses Ferrari power units and gearboxes for now. GM and TWG set up GM Performance Power Units LLC to produce works engines for the team, planned for the 2029 season. Longtime GM engine designer Russ O'Blenes leads the division. A works engine is one built by the manufacturer for its own team, which is the point of the 2029 plan: the engine and the car would come from one organisation, not two. Until the new factory is finished, preliminary testing and engineering is going on at an interim facility in Concord, North Carolina.
Think of it as renting a kitchen while the restaurant's own is built: the cooking is real, but the equipment belongs to someone else. The Ferrari deal covers the engine and the gearbox, so, for now, the heart of the car sits with its supplier.
GM PPU said it plans to spend US$65 to 70 million on an engine factory with room for 300 to 350 staff, plus a further US$75 to 80 million in start-up fees, with an opening expected in the first quarter of 2027. Separately, Concord's city authorities signed off a US$150 million project in February 2025 for a 204,045 square foot facility next to the Hendrick Motorsports campus: US$70 million of construction and US$80 million on dynamometers and research equipment. Both put full operation in the first quarter of 2027. Joe Saward has also reported that GM was seeking to acquire the rights to Renault's old power unit programme.
Cadillac's four bases
| Base | Role | Size or cost |
|---|---|---|
| Fishers, Indiana | Headquarters, chassis manufacturing, research and development | 400,000 square feet; US$200 million |
| Concord, North Carolina | Engine department and power unit facility | 204,045 square feet; US$150 million project |
| Warren, Michigan | Additional operations | Site of the General Motors Technical Center |
| Silverstone, England | Race team and chassis designers | Races under an American licence |
The Fishers campus, in a suburb of Indianapolis, was originally meant to house every Andretti programme. It became Formula 1 only because FIA rules prohibit several racing series sharing a site, a measure against cost-cap circumvention. IndyCar and Formula E went to a different Indianapolis site of 240,000 square feet. The team also has a long-term agreement to rent Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne.
What stands in the way of competing at the front?
Almost everything is new. Lowdon said in January 2026 that the organisation had advertised 595 positions, received 143,265 applications and had taken on 520 people by the close of 2025. A team built that quickly has to turn a large intake into a working car, a customer engine deal and a stable management, all while its own power unit is still being planned.
The team principal changed in August 2026, and senior technical hires were still arriving on 24 September. On the other side of the ledger are the experienced Enstone alumni, two seasoned drivers and four sites on two continents. The stated aim is long-term competitiveness rather than an immediate result.
Where this goes next
The next fixed marker is the first quarter of 2027, when the Concord power unit site is expected to be fully operational. After that comes 2029, the season from which GM PPU plans to supply Cadillac with its own power units in place of Ferrari's.
They rest on a factory that has still to open. Until then Cadillac races as a customer of Ferrari, with Perez and Bottas, a new team principal in Budkowski, and Herta waiting as a test driver while he races in Formula 2.
