Cadillac Says Ford’s F1 Deal Is A Joke, Ford Says Gm Just Bought Stickers

This year’s Formula 1 World Championship is shaping up to be especially interesting, particularly for the burgeoning American fanbase. Not only is Cadillac joining the grid as the 11th team, but Ford has partnered with Red Bull Racing as its engine supplier, and before the racing even starts, the two US juggernauts have started trading jabs with each other.

At the center of Cadillac’s F1 push is Dan Towriss, who claims GM’s commitment vastly outweighs Ford’s. According to him, the two American efforts aren’t remotely comparable.

Read: Red Bull’s RB17 Hypercar Changed Again, And Now It’s Even More Unhinged

“It’s not even close,” Towriss said when discussing the two car manufacturers’ place in the sport. “One is a marketing deal with very minimal impact, while GM is an equity owner (in the Cadillac team). They’re deeply embedded from an engineering standpoint, and they were involved from day one. Those two deals couldn’t be more different.”

The Cadillac team was formed out of Andretti, which repeatedly tried and failed to gain approval to enter Formula 1. It’s aiming to morph into a full works team in 2028, creating its own powertrain. But, for 2026 and 2027, it will rely on Ferrari power.

Ford Fires Back

While speaking with The Athletic in response to comments from Towriss, Ford executive chairman Bill Ford said he “started to laugh” after hearing from GM.

“I would say, actually, the reverse is true,” he said. “They’re running a Ferrari engine. They’re not running a Cadillac engine. I don’t know if they have any GM employees on the race team.”

Ford insists its involvement is hands-on. The company has Ford Racing engineers embedded with the Red Bull Powertrains team in the UK, and it has supplied multiple 3D-printed components for the hybrid power unit. According to The New York Times, Ford also plays a technical role in battery deployment, calibration, and cell management.

“We could have spent a lot of money to slap our logo on a car, or to put our name alongside a team,” added Ford Performance general manager Will Ford. “But we made a very deliberate decision to form Red Bull Ford Powertrains, as a true technical partnership and really complement the audacious effort that Red Bull decided to set down on in developing their own power unit.”

Ultimately, banter between the teams will be irrelevant once the racing starts. Whereas Ford has partnered with one of F1’s strongest outfits of the past two decades, GM is starting from scratch and will likely have to scratch and claw its way up the field, or forever remain towards the back of the grid like Haas.

Red Bull Racing