Cadillac Formula 1 boss Dan Towriss admits the team faces a serious challenge to be fully prepared for its arrival on the grid in 2026.
F1 formally confirmed in March that Cadillac will join the grid in 2026, initially using customer Ferrari power units, after a drawn-out process of rejection and then finally acceptance from F1's commercial body.
Having finally landed that entry, Cadillac now has to prepare a car to run at F1's first official test under the new regulations at the end of January.
Speaking to The Race at a special Miami Grand Prix business leaders forum hosted jointly by The Race and American news outlet Axios, TWG Motorsport CEO Towriss explained the huge scale of the challenge his team faces to be ready in time.
“It certainly was a relief, or a momentary relief, and then you suddenly realise that the countdown has begun to be on the grid,” said Towriss, who conceded a "lack of track time" will also hurt the team before it makes its debut.
“In the shop, there's a clock coming down. So everybody knows every day that time is not on our side. And so the intensity continues to pick up from that standpoint.
"We had a windtunnel model, but it didn't have the Pirelli tyres, it had a modelled version of them.
“And so just some of those little differences, and not being able to correlate that to the track, and just the data that that a new team wouldn't have relative to an existing team.
"All those are going to be challenges which we think we can overcome, but certainly we're up against that."
Another problem for Cadillac as it fills positions in the team is that the chosen candidates often face gardening leaves with the previous employers, and cannot join immediately.
“The good news we've been hiring for a number of years,” said Towriss. “And so we've been able to bring on some tremendous talent in F1, with a lot of experience from that standpoint, into the team, and we work through those gardening leaves.
“It continues to be a challenge as new people come on from that standpoint, for sure, but we're happy with the team that we have, and we have the arrangements in place to give us the flexibility we need to build out the team.”
The team it currently building its new US manufacturing base in Fishers, Indiana, but it won’t be completed until 2026. Thus for the first car that work will be done elsewhere.
“From a commercial standpoint we expect Fishers to be open in late Q1 of next year, and then it'll continue,” said Towriss.
“Some of the manufacturing capabilities will continue to come online. And we'll very carefully bring things in house once we're confident that we're ready to take those over.”
How rejection "adversity" has strengthened the team
Towriss believes the “adversity” associated with the initial rejection of the team’s entry bid has strengthened its resolve – and helped to forge closer bonds with partner General Motors.
“Honestly, we're better for it,” Towriss added. “I'm glad I didn't know at the beginning how difficult it was going to be, and all that we would have to go through to get to that approval process.
“But it's forged the partnership with GM, and it's stronger than it would have been had we just been whisked right in.
“I think what we were able to build over that period of time, the team that Graeme [Lowdon, pictured below] has put together at Silverstone, wouldn't be where they are today if it were not for the adversity.
"So I think we like where we are.”
The team passed the first stage of the entry process when it was approved by the FIA under the Andretti name in October 2023.
However, it did not initially get through the second stage of a commercial agreement with the F1 organisation, against a background of strong opposition from the 10 existing teams.
Dropping the Andretti name and confirming the team would be a full works entry eventually propelled by a GM-built power unit ultimately swayed the decision, with much resting on what a new manufacturer entry would bring to F1.
Formula 1 finally indicated in November last year that Cadillac would be accepted for 2026 once all the boxes were ticked. However, full formal confirmation of the entry only came on March 7, followed on April 23 by FIA approval of GM as a power unit supplier from 2029.
Towriss concedes that getting the entry approved was a complicated process.
“A lot of it was just demonstrating the value, and doing all the things necessary over that period of time,” he said.
“And you have to invest a lot. You can't just do a presentation and say, ‘I want to come to F1.’ You have to show all the things that you can do.
"We were hiring, we had a car in the windtunnel, and we were doing all these things from a design standpoint to demonstrate that the things that were in the PowerPoint, the presentation, were valid.
“And then commercially we had to demonstrate value, and the partnership with GM, all those things together. And we were told ‘No,’ many times, sometimes nicely, sometimes not so nicely!
“But it was all able to come together eventually, and they saw the value that we bring to the series. And now we're here we feel very welcomed to be in F1, and we're really excited to be on the grid in 2026.”
Towriss confirmed that since the entry had been approved the key stakeholders in F1 have also been more positive towards the team.
“It's been a lot more cooperative,” he said. “I think we feel very welcomed on the grid. The partnership we have with Ferrari in this interim period before the Cadillac PU comes online has been fantastic.
“But really, all the team principals have reached out. It's been great to speak with them. F1 has been fantastic, Liberty, the FIA. Now that we're here it's great, now we can just focus on racing.”
