{"id":641481,"date":"2026-05-01T20:08:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T20:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/641481\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T20:08:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T20:08:14","slug":"cadillacs-stars-and-stripes-miami-debut-as-the-new-f1-team-races-on-us-soil-winnipeg-free-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/641481\/","title":{"rendered":"Cadillac\u2019s stars-and-stripes Miami debut as the new F1 team races on US soil \u2013 Winnipeg Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) \u2014 It was less than 14 months ago that Cadillac\u2019s frustrating push to enter Formula 1 finally came to an end and the team was approved to compete in the global motorsports series.<\/p>\n

The team has completed three races already but its biggest debut comes this weekend, on American soil, at the Miami Grand Prix. Cadillac F1 markets itself as the only true American team in the European-dominated series \u2014 Haas F1 is owned by California businessman Gene Haas \u2014 and represents the American dream.<\/p>\n

The effort to enter F1 began with Michael Andretti, son of motorsports\u2019 most famous naturalized U.S. citizen, and its 2026 car is named after Mario Andretti. And for its first race in North America, Cadillac debuted a special livery presented by the team\u2019s primary partner, TWG AI.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Cadillac
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCadillac driver Valtteri Bottas of Finland steers his car during the first practice session ahead of the Miami Formula One Grand Prix, Friday, May 1, 2026, in Miami Gardens, Fla. (AP Photo\/Rebecca Blackwell)<\/p>\n

The design integrates a stars and stripes motif in Cadillac\u2019s signature black and white color scheme, includes 50 stars on the front of the car and \u201cUSA\u201d is emblazoned on the rear wing. There is also a splash of red inside the wheels to get red, white and blue on the car.<\/p>\n

\u201cRacing at home for the first time is a major milestone for this team and something we\u2019ve been looking forward to for a long time,\u201d said Dan Towriss, CEO of the team and a part-time Fort Lauderdale resident. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of pride in representing the United States as the American team, especially in front of our home fans. We understand what that means and we\u2019re focused on showing up and delivering for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cadillac fields cars for Valtteri Bottas of Finland and Sergio Perez of Mexico, two veterans who have won in F1 for other teams. Through the first three races their best performance was Bottas finishing 13th and Perez 15th in the second round. Expected to be the worst performing team out of 11 based solely on this being its maiden year, Cadillac heads into Sunday\u2019s race ranked 10th ahead of Aston Martin in the constructors\u2019 standings.<\/p>\n

Colton Herta, who left the Andretti Global IndyCar team to race in F2 this season to earn the super license needed to compete in F1, is expected to eventually move into one of the Cadillac seats. The Californian was fastest in Friday\u2019s practice for the junior series and the plan now would eventually make him the only American driver on the F1 grid.<\/p>\n

An unexpected five-week layoff because of the war in Iran forced F1 to cancel two events scheduled in the Middle East, and Cadillac used that time to put together \u201ca fairly substantial upgrade package\u201d for Miami.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s spread over different parts of the car so probably the main area is the floor, but there are also changes on front and rear brakes, front wing as well,\u201d team principal Graeme \u2060Lowdon said. \u201cIt\u2019s a mixture of aero and a bit of weight saving as well. It\u2019s reasonably sizeable. We\u2019ll be watching the performance of the upgrade with great interest because there\u2019s an awful lot that we need to verify that other teams will be well down the route of doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the teams came to Miami with upgrades, but because Cadillac is so new, it might not have had the bandwidth to make so many changes if not for the break.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that we can make a bigger step than some other teams,\u201d Bottas said. \u201cBecause we should be able to do that in theory from where we started. So that\u2019s the goal. In the first three races I felt like every \u2060race was getting smoother and smoother, less and less issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lowdon, however, acknowledged that Cadillac is still in its teething phase as it competes against long tenured teams.<\/p>\n

\u201dWe\u2019re racing against teams that have done literally thousands of grand prixs,\u201d Lowdon said. \u201cIf there is a thing such as team muscle memory how you operate, other teams have that advantage. Everything for us is new.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\tWinnipeg Free Press | Newsletter\n\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Sign<\/p>\n

That includes the attention the team is receiving.<\/p>\n

Interest and popularity in Cadillac began even before one of its cars hit the track. Jim Campbell, vice president of performance and motorsports commercial operations, said General Motors CEO Mary Barra and President Mark Reuss will be in Miami all weekend, alongside dealers, customers and invited guests.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s our fourth race, but it\u2019s our first time to race our Cadillac F1 on American soil, it\u2019s super special,\u201d Campbell said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been looking forward to this day. We have been here the last three years, really trying to learn about the F1 platform and so to be here now racing is super exciting, as opposed to being here observing.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP auto racing: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/auto-racing<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) \u2014 It was less than 14 months ago that Cadillac\u2019s frustrating push to enter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-641481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}