Last Updated on December 11 2024, 10:09 am

Cadillac (Andretti in disguise) will join the Formula One grid in 2026. The GM owned brand had expressed little if no interest in F1 until the F1 teams and Liberty Media expressed publicly that the Andretti Global Racing brand was not big enough to add value to the sport.

This set up the rejection of their application by FOM despite the FIA having green lit the project last season. It appeared that the matter had become personal to Liberty Media’s CEO Greg Maffei, when in Miami he barged into a conversation between Mario Andretti and Stefano Domenicali telling the motor racing legend.

The 1978 F1 champion had been summoned to Capitol Hill by the US Justice committee who questioned him over F1’s rejection of the Andretti application to join the grid. News of this visit had reached Liberty Media and Mario was explaining to Domenicali how he had not instigated the matter.

 

 

 

Mario insulted

“I was asked to go there,” Andretti said. “And just as I was trying to explain that to Stefano, Greg Maffei, Mr. Maffei, broke in the conversation and he said: ‘Mario, I want to tell you that I will do everything in my power to see that Michael [Andretti] never enters Formula 1’.”

The original Andretti application was to just join as a team and buy a customer power unit from one of the existing manufacturers. Cadillac was an after thought to bolster the bids perceived ‘value’ which F1 now required.

Of course the current power unit manufacturers have been performing their research and development for the new 2026 regulations for some time meaning Cadillac are two to three years behinds the rest of the field, hence talk of their power unit only arriving in 2028.

When F1 made the decision to continue beyond 2025 with hybrid V6 turbo engines, the landscape of global motoring looked very different to how it is now. Mercedes and Porsche were adamant hybrid would be the favoured power of choice in the global car market, believing people would take years to trust fully electric vehicles.

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However, the conversion to electric has been more popular than anyone could have foreseen and with hybrids initially set to be banned in the UK in 2030 (EU 2035) the goal posts have moved significantly.

When the FIA announced the final set of design regulations for the 2026 power units in June, Stefano Domenicali made a statement which revealed all parties behind the scenes were not in agreement over the future of hybrid in Formula One.

“My personal opinion is that it would be enough to run on climate-neutral fuel. But we had to take into account the wishes of the manufacturers. Developments have gone so fast that a decision today might be different from what it was two years ago. 

“I am not an engineer, but I have to have a vision of what the sport will look like in the future. And I can imagine that with the next regulations, we can focus on sustainable fuel,” Domenicali said in an interview with Auto Motor und Sport.

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The example of Honda joining late

The problem with hybrid power units in F1 is their weight. The final year of the V8 engines back in 2013 saw the cars some 200kg lighter than the current breed and when filming his Mercedes goodbye at Silverstone, Lewis Hamilton chose his 2013 pre-hybrid Mercedes as his favoured car.

There is a consensus amongst the F1 drivers that the current breed of cars are too heavy and lacking nimbleness, such that the FIA committed to reducing this when the new set of 2026 regulations were complete. Yet disappointingly Nicholas Tombazis, head of the FIA single seaters, revealed earlier this year the best we can hope for is a weight reduction of 25-30kg.

Of course the research and investment costs into designing new F1 hybrid power unit is prohibitive and the new 2026 engines will be with us for several years. Exactly how long is unknown at present but it may be much shorter than the twelve years the current crop will have endured.

Honda joined the Formula One V6 hybrid party a year later than the rest of the manufacturers and they failed to bridge the gap to Ferrari, Renault and Mercedes for several years. Fernando Alonso mocked the lack lustre Japanese power unit in the back of his McLaren during the 2015 Japanese Grand Prix as he radioed in: “It feels like GP2. Embarrassing. Very embarrassing,” Alonso said on the radio to his engineer as he was overtaken by the Sauber of Marcus Ericsson.

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In their sixth year back in F1, the Honda V6 hybrid finally came good in 2020 as they powered the Red Bull team to second in the constructors’ championship. The rest is history as the Japanese auto manufacture have since celebrated four driver titles along with two for the Red Bull team.

Cadillac with no history of F1 power unit manufacturing are facing a similar scenario to Honda but unlike the Japanese corporation they would be not one but two years behind the rest of the pack. Given these new hybrid units are expected to be retained for seven to eight years, Cadillac face the same situation as Honda maybe becoming competitive in the final year before its all change again.

Of course there is talk of them buying the intellectual property to Renaults now ditched 2026 hybrid, yet given their current version is the least powerful of all the current manufacturers its questionable how much value is in that.

As back door deals in the Piranha club roll on, an agreement will be made to ditch the V6 hybrids as soon as possible which will let Cadillac off the hook. The team will run with Ferrari power and when sanity returns to the sport and the hybrids are canned in favour of bio fuel and internal combustion engines, Cadillac may then turn their hand to something they know well.

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Max Verstappen claimed his fourth Formula One drivers title in 2024, but it was in stark contrast to his third during last year’s campaign where he won nineteen of the twenty three Grand Prix. This year started well for the Dutch champion as he reeled off four wins in the first five weekends and only a mechanical failure in Australia prevented him from making it a clean sweep.

At Round six in Miami, a fortunately timed safety car for McLaren saw Lando Norris take the lead from Max during a pit stop, going on to claim his maiden victory ahead of the chasing Red Bull driver.  Next time out in Imola Max returned the the top of there podium having led from pole after a stunning qualifying lap.

The notoriously difficult to overtake circuiting Emilia-Romagne meant without a mistake, the win was designed for the Red Bull driver. Next up in Monaco the RB20 proved to have suspension issues with it being non-compliant over the large kerbs in the principality. Max started and finished the Grand Prix in sixth… READ MORE