Andretti and General Motors are aiming at a joint venture to enter F1 under the name of the Cadilac brand.
Andretti and General Motors on Thursday made an official announcement partnering together to enter Formula 1 under the Cadilac brand name. The partnership claimed to already have a “conditional agreement” with a third-party engine manufacturer.
Regardless, the partnership together will file a candidacy to the FIA. This is under the FIA’s new “expression of interest” process which was initiated by President Mohammed Ben Sulayem. The expression is a part of FIA’s attempts to attract new teams and check their interests and validity in the sport.
The Andretti-Cadilac Venture will not get a chance to enter the elite group before 2026 though.
Regardless, Mark Reuss gave us some intel on the engine manufacturer. The General Motors President said:
“We have a signed agreement with a power unit supplier to begin with and then as we move forward, we bring a lot of our expertise to create things for the future as well,”
Reuss said on Thursday.
“It would be more a collaboration with another manufacturer,”
added Michael Andretti.
Speculations point towards Renault being the possible manufacturer. The French manufacturer earlier also made an agreement with Andretti back when the team aimed to join the sport on its own. Further, Renault is the supplier with the least customers on the grid. And the rule states that the manufacturer with the least customers is bound to supply engines to a new team.
Can Honda supply engines to Andretti?
On the other hand, General Motors also has some links with Honda. They are their main competitors in the IndyCar circuit and have a collaboration on the EVs side. However, the relation doesn’t directly mean a tie-up between them is possible in Honda:
“On the EV part of it we do have a larger partnership with Honda but also compete against them in series like IndyCar as well, so we have that natural respect and relationship which is not problematic at all.“
“We’ll talk about the engine piece of this at a later date.”
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