It’s official now. Formula 1 will once again have eleven teams and 22 cars from 2026. General Motors will enter Formula 1as has just been officially announced by both Liberty Media, the FIA and the American company itself. Political changes in the United States in recent weeks have accelerated the process.
General Motors will enter Formula 1 through its Cadillac brandand associated with Andretti Global, although they are not mentioned in the official statement. They come to Formula 1 initially as a client team, but with a whole plan ahead to have their own engine and be the sixth motorist in Formula 1.
Cadillac will use Ferrari engines until 2027, and then make its own
A decade later, There will once again be 22 cars on the track in Formula 1. Liberty Media and the FIA have just approved the entry of Cadillac starting in the 2026 season as the eleventh team on the grid. Since Manor disappeared back in 2016 in Formula 1, they have only participated in ten teams.
General Motors manages to break the will of Liberty Media and especially its CEO, Greg Maffei, who will leave his position at the end of the year but has had to eat the last straw of welcoming Cadillac in a statement in which the word Andretti is not mentioned even once, despite to what will be the base of Cadillac.
Cadillac will enter Formula 1 initially as a customer team. That is, in 2026 and 2027 they will use engines from another factory, presumably from Ferrari. But starting in 2028, General Motors intends to put its own engines on the track, becoming the sixth motorist in Formula 1 along with Ferrari, Mercedes, Honda, Ford and Audi.
In fact, Cadillac has just signed Rob White, former Alpine technical chief, specializing in engines. Many rumors suggest that General Motors would be trying to buy the intellectual property of Renault engineswhich Alpine will stop using precisely in 2026, to switch to Mercedes.
The dispute between Andretti and Formula 1 has been stuck for four years, with even the United States Congress involved. But it seems that it is the arrival of Donald Trump, very close to Andretti, to the White House which I have finished convincing Formula 1. There will be eleven teams starting in 2026.
Statement on General Motors application to join FIA Formula One World Championship in 2026https://t.co/oI2R6K6aRN
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 25, 2024
We’ll see what he’s capable of. Cadillac on its first adventure in the Formula 1 world championship throughout its history.
Source: www.motorpasion.com
