The all new 11th entry to the Formula One grid was finally accepted by the sports owners Liberty Media after initially being rejected by the F1 commercial rights holder. Originally branded as Andretti F1, the team and the proposal was restructured and rebranded to broker a deal to prevent the US Justice department launching a full investigation into anti competitive practices.

The NFL was hit last summer with a fine just short of $5bn dollars for breaches in US anti-trust laws, following a decade of legal action. Clearly this was something the F1 owners decided was not in their interest and capitulated from their original rejection of an 11th F1 competitor subject to a number of personnel deckchairs being shuffled on deck.

Cadillac is the de factor Andretti team entry, rebranded and with Michael Andretti completely out of the picture given his outspoken criticism of senior paddock folk had appeared to have become the stumbling block. This was evident at the 2024 Miami Grand Prix when Liberty Media’s CEO Greg Maffei, broke into a conversation between Mario Andretti and Stefano Domenicali telling the motor racing legend he would ensure Michael will never be allowed to enter the sport.

 

 

 

Motor Racing legend insulted

Mario was explaining to the F1 supremo how he had not instigated the meeting on Capitol Hill earlier in the week, but that he had been summoned by the US lawmakers to explain his side of the F1 application tale. “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 in fact an after thought to bolster the bid’s perceived ‘value’ which F1 now said was 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.

Now Cadillac have revised their timescale for the new F1 power unit claiming it will be around the turn of the decade, which could mean as late as the year 2030 and probably even beyond then. TJ13 believes General Motors have no intention of developing the latest F1 white elephant power unit and will consider becoming a power unit supplier when the next set of engine regulations are framed. 

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 unit of choice in the global car market, believing the general population would take decades to trust fully electric vehicles.

McLaren boss admits Verstappen “noise” a distraction

 

 

 

F1 supremo wants rid of hybrid power

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.

F1 CEO told Red Bull to “slow down”

 

 

 

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 over hybrid version in which he won F1 titles.

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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F1 return of the internal combustion engine

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 to three years behind the rest of the pack. Given these new hybrid units are expected to be retained into the next decade, Cadillac face the same situation as Honda maybe only becoming competitive in the final year of the 2026 regulations, 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 idea.

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 US owned 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.

F1’s new plan to prevent ‘cheats’

 

 

 

Perez failure may have secured Red Bull dominance again

How F1 teams face the starting gun over new 2026 regs – The FIA will fire the starting gun at midnight which will start the race amongst the Formula One teams to get to grips with their revolutionary new car designs under the big regulation changes coming in 2026. It may seem bizarre with a full 2025 campaign ahead that the teams will start dedicating precious resources to a car which will not hit the track for more than a year and does this suggests 2025 is less important twosome of the F1 competitors?

As Lewis Hamilton identified as early as the Austrian Grand Prix during last year’s Red Bull uber dominant campaign, “They don’t have to make any changes to this year’s car any more as they’re so far ahead. He’s cruising at 100 points ahead of us.

“I think the FIA should probably put a time when everyone is allowed to start developing on the next year’s car. So August 1, that’s when everybody can start so then no one can get an advantage on the next year, cause that sucks.”…. READ MORE