A long-shot American dream

The Andretti family dream to enter an American team in Formula One will finally come to fruition when the season starts this weekend at the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park in Melbourne.

However, everything about the team will look different to how Michael Andretti had envisioned. In fact, he's not even part of the project that, after nearly five years, has at last come to life.

Instead, Cadillac F1 is now the property of TWG Motorsports — led by Mark Walter and Dan Towriss — and General Motors. Walter's group is all-in on sports properties; he is the controlling owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, a major stakeholder in the Los Angeles Lakers, owns the WNBA's Los Angeles Sparks, has a stake in the Chelsea soccer team, the Professional Women's Hockey League and the Billie Jean King Cup.

Towriss has Andretti Global in IndyCar, Spire Motorsports in NASCAR, Wayne Taylor Racing in IMSA, as well as his day job as founder and CEO of financial services company Group 1001.

Along with GM, this group has taken very seriously the long and winding road to get the project to the starting grid in Australia on Sunday.

When F1 initially denied the application, they pressed on and continued working on a car and engine even without approval to join the globe-trotting series, considered the most popular motor sports competition in the world. "Work continues at pace," they all said, as they worked behind the scenes to gain approval.

It was made official exactly one year from Sunday's season-opening race.

The team has hired Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as the veteran drivers to build the program. It doesn't hurt that both are extremely popular — Perez is a national hero in Mexico — and GM happens to sell many, many cars in that country.

"We ran into a lot of obstacles, a lot of voices telling us not just 'no', but 'never'," said Towriss about the team's fight to the grid.

"Formula One is innovation on the biggest stage possible, and the United States didn't really have a seat at that table. To now come in with General Motors and the Cadillac brand, that's something we're tremendously proud of."

What to expect?

As the first new team on the grid in a decade — Haas, also an American team, entered F1 in 2016 — many expect Cadillac to be the worst in the series for now. Its engine isn't ready and Cadillac will lease from Ferrari for the first two seasons.

Its first car will be called MAC-26, short for Mario Andretti Cadillac, in honor of the 1978 champion. Mario Andretti was the most recent American F1 champion and his son Michael championed the initial bid. But when he couldn't find a way into the F1 club, he turned the project over to Walter and Towriss in order to see it succeed.

It cost them a $200 million anti-dilution fee to compensate existing competitors for the impact on prize money to even join the club.

The team had its initial shakedown at Silverstone in England in January, then participated in F1's official preseason testing in Barcelona and Bahrain.

The GM power unit facility is located near the technical center on Hendrick Motorsports' campus outside Charlotte, North Carolina, while primary headquarters are in a facility near Silverstone and many operations run from Fishers, Indiana.

Cadillac is already billing itself as America's team, despite the decade-long existence of Haas, which has never tapped into seizing the North American market.

And, if former IndyCar driver Colton Herta has a successful season racing in F2, he could soon be the first American driver in F1 since Logan Sargeant flamed out in 2023.

"The historic debut of the Cadillac Formula One team in Australia is the realization of a vision that has driven so many of us at General Motors, and a moment of tremendous pride for everyone who has worked tirelessly to make it happen," said GM president Mark Reuss."To bring Cadillac back to the tier one set of global luxury brands, F1 is a vital part of the equation. Helping bring this program to life has been incredibly rewarding for me and for the whole team."

Cadillac is fierce in its desire to be the US representation — the team debuted its 2026 livery during the Super Bowl — and getting Herta into a seat would complete its claim to be the team racing for the red, white and blue banner.

"There's definitely a national pride element to Cadillac," said Towriss. "It feels like the right place at the right time, where Formula One is globally, where Cadillac is as a brand, and where the US is on the world sporting stage."

All by design

Branding is a massive part of Cadillac's identity, and many of its ideas come from Towriss' wife, Cassidy. She has clear ideas on how the team should look, from its suites, to its merchandise, livery, marketing and branding.

Her work with the team is real, her input valued, and she's expected to be a part of the next season of the Netflix docudrama Drive to Survive.

"She's a very studied motor sports fan. We can have marketing people come up with an idea and she'll say: 'Don't do that. Benetton did that and you'll look like idiots'," Towriss said."She's also the right demographic — 31-year-old female. She brings a perspective that is super valuable."

Asked what the personality of Cadillac is while seated in a carefully designed and decorated suite, Towriss described it as the American dream with a touch of edginess.

"It's gritty and it's bold. We didn't come into F1 to look like every other team, to copy what McLaren is doing or what Mercedes is doing," Towriss said."It's a group of people, and this is going to sound cliche, but we started with big dreams, we ran into a lot of obstacles, and it was just a cacophony of 'no'.

"Our ambitions are so high, and we're not even focused on other people. It wasn't just to get here, that wasn't the destination. It's really just the beginning. We've come at this incredibly complex, competitive time, and we're jumping in from a standing start. We started from nothing. We didn't buy from an existing team. So it's a pretty daunting challenge."

What if Cadillac is initially terrible?

Most new teams take a decade or more to find success. Some never do, and others don't even make it 10 years.

Cadillac, Towriss said, wants to win.

"If I am leading a team, that's the tone I want to set," he said."If you just want to have a job with a race team, go do that someplace else. Come here because you want to build something special. Be part of it because you want to win."

Towriss is careful not to sound arrogant or delusional, but he really does not want anyone within the Cadillac program to settle for being a struggling upstart.

"In private, we're gonna push. We've been very careful to not put things out that set unreasonable expectations," Towriss said. "There's risk in everything. You have to be willing to say:'This is what I want to do,' and then go try to achieve it. We'll be very cautious and careful what we say, but at the same time, it doesn't mean that there's not this insane drive, this insane push how to be fast, to go fast, how quickly can we start competing with people? Right now we are ready to go find out."

Agencies Via Xinhua