Cadillac vs. the world: How GM got its place in F1 for 2026

The Americans are coming. General Motors is going Formula 1 racing, the series announcing on Monday that it has agreed a deal in principle that will see the automaker from Detroit join the grid beginning in 2026.

It marks a seminal moment in American racing. By the time GM’s Cadillac becomes F1’s 11th team, it will be 50 years since the last U.S.-based outfits competed in the series.

There is a long way to go before that, though, and a lot can change in little more than 12 months. In fact, it was only this year that F1 had rejected GM’s initial efforts to join the sport — then fronted by Andretti Global.

So what has changed to get Cadillac into the paddock? And what does its looming debut mean for American racing? ESPN dissects General Motors’ arrival in F1 with views from inside the paddock and from the epicenter of U.S. racing.

How GM turned F1’s ‘no’ into a ‘yes’

General Motors joining the grid in 2026 represents a huge and unexpected U-turn from Formula 1 over the elusive 11th grid slot, so what changed?

The wording of Monday’s announcement — and specifically what wasn’t mentioned — was key. Originally packaged as an Andretti bid supported by GM, the Andretti name was not present in F1’s Cadillac news release and has effectively been sidelined in favour of GM taking the reins completely. Much of that is down to events that have taken place behind the scenes.

Holding company TWG Global taking control of Andretti Global in September saw Michael Andretti, who had angered F1 and its teams with his repeated public criticisms, shuffled away from a leadership role and out of the orbit of the F1 bid. That started a chain reaction of events that made the bid much more favourable to F1, with TWG able to persuade GM to take the reins of the project. GM is now going all-in with its Cadillac brand rather than simply being a technical partner of a new entrant, committing to eventually building, running and supplying its own engines. That satisfied one of the key criteria F1 had been looking for in an 11th team.

The reasoning behind January’s decision to block Andretti-GM for 2026 centred around value and competitiveness. F1 doubted…