With F1 entry, General Motors has a shot to become America’s team on the grid

Monday marked a massive step for American motorsports. But can it be converted to a victory?

Formula One announced that it came to “an agreement in principle with General Motors,” the well-known American manufacturer, to join the grid in 2026. It’ll be the first time more than 10 teams have been on the grid since 2016, and GM already is calling it the Cadillac Formula 1 Team in its news release.

If the application is finalized, GM will have two cars on the grid but will need to be a customer team first, buying an engine from one of the existing original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) while it continues to work towards building its own power unit. The goal is to be a works team by the end of the decade.

There have been American aspects in F1 before. Ford left the sport in 2004 as an engine manufacturer and will return in 2026 with a technical partnership with Red Bull. Haas is the current American team, though with most of its operations in Europe, and there’s not an American driver on the grid after Franco Colapinto replaced Logan Sargeant this past season.

GM and Cadillac, though, are poised to be a true all-American F1 team, between operations largely being in the U.S. and the expressed interest in possibly signing an American driver. The interest in the sport has rapidly grown in this country since the COVID-19 pandemic for a variety of reasons, and given the culture of sport in the United States, GM faces a unique opportunity to seize a market that thrives on national pride in competition.

Can General Motors take F1 fandom to the next level, furthering the stronghold the sport has in America?

A look at F1’s American ties

F1 is no stranger to the U.S.

It has raced at Watkins Glen International (from 1961-1980) and had stints out in Long Beach, California (1976-1983), Detroit (1982-1988) and Indianapolis Motor Speedway (1950-60, 2000-2007). The international motorsport series competed at nine U.S. tracks over the years before leaving the country after the 2007 United States Grand Prix in Indianapolis. But then came Circuit of the Americas, which joined the calendar in 2012 and brought back the U.S. Grand Prix.

Then came Colorado-based Liberty Media, which acquired F1 in 2017. The company modernized F1 and increased its digital presence, opening up what had long been considered a closed-off sport. The Netflix docuseries “Drive to Survive” debuted in 2019 but took off during the COVID-19 pandemic, giving people worldwide a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the rivalries, teams and drivers. As interest grew in the sport, F1 expanded its reach in the U.S., with Miami (2022) and Las Vegas (2023) added to the calendar.

However, as far as a proper American team goes, there have been few in F1’s history. Haas joined in 2016, and it was the first American team since 1986, when the unrelated Haas Lola last competed. Haas does have ties to NASCAR and Kannapolis, North Carolina, but the F1 racing operation is largely over in Europe. It is a global approach, and Haas does still lean into its American identity, such as the eagle on the side of the car during the 2024 U.S. Grand Prix.

But it does raise questions about how American the team is.

“We want to be the American global team,” former Haas team principal Guenther Steiner once told The Athletic. “You need to be proud of your identity, but not just use that one as this is what makes us great, because you could fail as well. If you do bad, you don’t make America proud.”

Then there’s the case of the drivers. The most recent American on the F1 grid was Sargeant, who scored one point during his 36 grands prix with Williams, and there’s been an extensive history of Americans competing in F1 dating back to the 1950s — the likes of Dan Gurney, Phil Hill, Mario Andretti, and Scott Speed.

Making an international name

Of course, one thing Haas hasn’t done to capture American fans’ imagination is win in F1. In 188 F1 races across nine seasons, Haas has zero podiums and just 299 total points, never finishing higher than fifth in the constructors championship.

Will General Motors fare any better? The company has extensive motorsports success, including 1,199 NASCAR Cup Series victories with Buick, Chevrolet, Oldsmobile and Pontiac. Chevrolet has won nearly two-and-a-half times as many NASCAR manufacturer’s titles as Ford, with 43, and it has won 13 Indianapolis 500s.

But when it comes to international motorsports, GM hasn’t been a big player outside of nine class victories at Le Mans. But now, racing in F1 under the Cadillac brand, it has the potential and a leg up on rival Ford, who will be with Red Bull as a technical partner but not as a team owner. There will likely be pressure on GM to produce results relatively quickly.

From an operational standpoint, the project has continued hiring personnel across different departments, even after the Andretti bid was initially rejected. The operations, though, aren’t all centered in one location. Cadillac F1 will operate in Silverstone, England; Fishers, Indiana; Warren, Michigan; and Charlotte, North Carolina.

The England base isn’t a surprise, as it keeps the team within the heart of the F1 world and has been up and running for months. However, the other locations are in the different power hubs of American motorsports. GM has a technical center in Warren and Charlotte, and Andretti plans to use Fishers as the global HQ.

Then there’s the drivers, which could further the all-American team appeal.

During the initial bid process, there was an expressed desire to have at least one American driver. However, there has been no news on drivers — not just names but also whether GM would want two rookies, two veterans or a mix. This could open the door to the likes of Zhou Guanyu, Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen or Colapinto, who won’t have a full-time seat next year. Or could American drivers like Sargeant, Formula 2’s Jak Crawford or IndyCar’s Colton Herta (depending on the superlicense) be in the mix? There’s a wealth of talent to pull from across different series.

Four years after the initial “Drive to Survive” boom, GM and Cadillac will give U.S. fans a team they can identify with, particularly if an American driver is signed and success follows. There’s an opportunity to seize within the American market, and General Motors might just accomplish the feat.

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(Photo: Clive Rose – Formula 1/Formula 1 via Getty Images; Design: Dan Goldfarb/The Athletic)