Cadillac's F1 'launch' - Everything you need to know

Cadillac's Formula 1 team held its first ‘launch' at the Miami Grand Prix, where a large contingent from the General Motors-backed entry is in attendance.

The presence of F1's new 11th team in Miami is significant in scale, but also symbolically.

There is a substantial contingent from the team's TWG Motorsport and General Motors ownership camps at this race, which marks the first time since the entry was granted that senior figures are all together.

This includes GM president Mark Reuss, TWG boss Dan Towriss, team principal Graeme Lowdon, and engine project leader Russ O'Blenes and The Race understands there was a meeting between the stakeholders during the weekend.

Cadillac's work overall is being conducted in multiple locations with two US bases for Cadillac and the GM-backed engine programme, and a Silverstone facility for design work and a European hub during the season.

Its entry was only approved in March after an extremely long process, which held up various key developments and meant it could not advertise for jobs or market itself as an F1 team.

That is why a launch event was held in Miami on Saturday to introduce the entry and its Cadillac F1 Team identity, and begin a process of building its profile ahead of the 2026 season.

So far this has been limited in terms of a promotional video and a team logo that unsurprisingly incorporates Cadillac's established branding, with "bold, relentless and innovative" the buzzwords attached to the project identity.

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem attended briefly, while Towriss and Reuss addressed the audience at a party intended to convey the look and feel of an entry that wants to start imposing itself on F1.

As expected there was no major announcement attached to the event - although fans of Sergio Perez, who is in talks over a Cadillac seat, were outside the venue to support his bid.

Valtteri Bottas, Zhou Guanyu, Mick Schumacher, Colton Herta and Jak Crawford are all understood to have been in the frame during discussions so far, although Lowdon told The Race that driver talks were "not at a critical stage" this weekend.

Cadillac's driver talks - What we know

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"More important is for the ownership to get together," said Lowdon.

"One of the key purposes is to introduce the brand, the team itself, and its identity.

"Basically, in a very respectful way, saying to everyone ‘here we are'.

"Hopefully you're going to see a lot more of this and we're going to have a bigger and bigger presence as time goes on.

"As we said, does it help or hinder if you can't say you're a Formula 1 team? Well, now we can. And so this is us doing it.

"Here we are."

Project bosses consider the Miami event as a seminal moment in the formation of the team as it is the first formal effort to shout about the project.

Reuss described it as "an emotional evening" after a process of over three years working with Towriss and project partner Mark Walters.

He said it was "a gift" how their "relationship developed through thick and thin" in the process of building something that will become a full works team in 2029 when Cadillac uses a GM-built engine after an initial period as a Ferrari customer.

Towriss said the strength of the collaboration is "why this project is going to be so strong" and publicly thanked Ben Sulayem for his "unwavering support", as it was Ben Sulayem who started the process to allow a new team to enter and - at times controversially - was vocal about his belief in Cadillac's merits after the FIA approved the entry long before F1 itself did.

"It's no secret that it was a long journey," said Towriss. "It was a journey of many ‘nos'.

"When we said we wanted to build a Formula 1 team, we were told, it's too hard, it's too ambitious, it'll take too long to do it.

"But every 'no' sharpened our focus, sharpened the vision of this organisation. And so every time we ran into an obstacle, we just would find a new way, a new path around.

"And every choice was better than the one before."