[RahulNagaraj]

The Andretti-Cadillac F1 team's chances of entering Formula 1 in the 2026 season seem to be gaining momentum. However, the team, unlike its American automotive rival Ford, wants to have a major technical presence in F1.

According to reports, General Motors is said to be evaluating an F1 engine programme, which could power the team's car once it enters the sport. Eric Warren, GM's former NASCAR programme chief, stated that General Motors want to be involved in the whole process, which includes designing the car, rather than having just a commercial partnership with another team.



General Motors stated that if their "strong application" is accepted by the FIA and Andretti-Cadillac does enter the sport in 2026, the team will run a customer engine during its first year. This is because the 2026 engine manufacturers are already declared. Hence by rule, the company is aiming to have its engines at the earliest, by 2027.

Warren stated that it is difficult for a manufacturer to say an engine is built 100% in-house and that they always have technical partners to work with. However, Warren thinks the company has the capabilities that would be substantial to that. He added that while they could develop an engine, whether they choose to and what elements are yet to be determined.

The 2026 F1 season will see the arrival of Ford and Audi into the sport. While Ford has a commercial partnership with Red Bull, Audi will enter as an engine manufacturer and take over the operations of the current Alfa Romeo Sauber F1 team.

Source: Motorsport.com

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I feel like an in-house engine deal is a big old ambitious move - any other manufacturer making similar soundings and you'd have the Concorde Agreement Cartel and FIA weak at the knees but let's be honest here: for whatever reason, Toto, Christian et al. are determined to keep changing the goalposts for entry by Andretti. It's yet another ugly piece of work by the powers that be in F1, I really hope the board members at some of these other OEMs have seen the lack of consistency when it comes to treatment of prospective new entries in F1, and how they've treated anything to do with Andretti - I'd love to see those chickens come home to roost down the line.

Anyway, I feel like just bringing GM along as a technical partner is big enough from Andretti, they needn't have even proposed an in house engine deal, could've just done a badge engineering job like Ford have with the RBPT. Sure there's a customer engine deal that could be done. My main doubt stems from the fact that in WEC, afaik, GM went down the LMDH route for their entry. Instead of the LMH hypercar route where OEMs do pretty much everything, Cadillac went with the pragmatic approach, I believe they use a spec Daytona hybrid system. Wouldn't they have to develop the entire PU themselves in this scenario? Hybrid and ICE components?

[ryzen7@5800u]

The idea of a 11th team in F1 is exciting! But, I do wonder if GM would be biting off more they can chew by aiming to start off with their own powerplants by 2027. The road they would be walking is littered with failures - Peugeot, Yamaha, Porsche, Lamborghini, Subaru, Toyota and maybe a few more names I am forgetting.
Also, I can kind of see the FIA's perspective - nobody wants a repeat of the 2010s debacle.
Success in F1 needs a long term investment of a large amount of money, and even if GM join in 2026, it will take them a while to set up all the facilities and gather all the talent to even break into the midfield - even established teams like Alpine, McLaren, Alpha Tauri and Alfa Romeo seem to be struggling.
I think a better option is to buy out an existing team - maybe Haas - and leverage their existing facilities and talent to reduce the amount of infrastructure development needed.

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Originally Posted by ryzen7@5800u

Also, I can kind of see the FIA's perspective - nobody wants a repeat of the 2010s debacle.
Success in F1 needs a long term investment of a large amount of money, and even if GM join in 2026, it will take them a while to set up all the facilities and gather all the talent to even break into the midfield - even established teams like Alpine, McLaren, Alpha Tauri and Alfa Romeo seem to be struggling.
I think a better option is to buy out an existing team - maybe Haas - and leverage their existing facilities and talent to reduce the amount of infrastructure development needed.

I think the key thing to remember here is that GM is only the factory partner to Andretti Autosport, who would be the main outfit that runs the F1 team, and here the objections aren't really from the FIA but instead from the spoilt children in the paddock. Citing the 2010 era struggling teams is an argument that just doesn't wash for a number of reasons. The teams restructured the payment structure with the current Concorde Agreement to ensure that the financials were self sustaining for all teams, which is why despite Gunther having to go cap in hand to Gene, Haas hasn't really folded in the years since. Toto and the others just don't want to let Michael Andretti into their closed shop despite the fact that Andretti as a sporting outfit dwarfs Haas even in their home market of North America, with long established and successful racing programmes in multiple disciplines. Besides, Haas operates on a barebones infrastructure, they're literally a glorified Scuderia parts bin team where the bigwigs at Maranello can chuck whatever new kid is coming up their driver programme in the driving seat whilst getting vital data for their totally-always-above-board engine programme.

All that being said, ultimately I think getting GM to stick their label on an F1 engine programme, is going to be at best similar to the Ford type deal with RBPT. I don't think GM has the appetite for a full works offering, I can see a badge deal in the offing though.