North Carolina will play a part in launching another Formula 1 team, pending completion of an agreement in principle between the top-tier international racing series and General Motors.
On Monday, F1 officials said GM and its partners at TWG Global and “have achieved operational milestones and made clear their commitment to brand the [sport’s] 11th team GM/Cadillac.” The moves justify moving forward with the application, with an eye toward having the new team on the grid in 2026, they said.
In its own announcement, GM said its F1 team already has operations in Indiana, Michigan, Great Britain, and Charlotte. That’s a reference to Concord in Cabarrus County, where the Detroit automaker’s Charlotte Technical Center operates close to Hendrick Motorsports and the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The center opened in 2022 and as of Oct. 1 had 187 people working there to help the NASCAR and IndyCar race teams affiliated with the Chevrolet and Cadillac brands. It is hiring more people for the F1 program.
On Nov. 13 it posted an ad for a F1 strategy analyst and on Nov. 20 it followed up with postings for an F1 performance engineer and and F1 performance developer. Earlier, the company said it is seeking a “race strategy lead” to spearhead telemetry work for major racing series, including F1. The positions would be based in Concord.
The Charlotte area is home to the Kannapolis-headquartered Haas F1 Team, which ranks sixth in F1’s team standings. Haas assembles its cars in the UK, and uses Ferrari drivetrain components.
What distinguishes the GM/Cadillac effort from Haas’ is that GM’s will become “a full works team,” meaning it will build its own cars and power units. GM says it already has people in place to work on “to work on aerodynamics, chassis and component development, software and vehicle-dynamics simulation.”
“This is a global stage for us to demonstrate GM’s engineering expertise and technology leadership at an entirely new level,” GM President Mark Reuss said.
TWG Global is the investment vehicle of Mark Walter, the CEO of New York-based Guggenheim Partners. He is also the part-owner and chairman of the Major League Baseball franchise Los Angeles Dodgers and co-owner of English Premier League soccer club Chelsea.
While GM is clearly a domestic company, Haas has struggled to market itself as an American team. Haas had to cut ties with a key financial backer, Russian oligarch Dmitry Mazepin, after the beginning of the Ukraine war. Before that, its cars were painted to resemble the Russian flag.
Monday’s announcement capped a few years of controversy over an 11th team in F1 that would have been led by Michael Andretti and had backing from GM. Andretti is the son of American motorsports legend and 1978 F1 champ Mario Andretti. It launched the facilities-development and hiring efforts that GM will build on.
But F1 officials in January refused to allow an Andretti team on the grid, a decision that drew Congressional attention (including from North Carolina U.S. Rep. Don Davis, D-1st) and a U.S. Justice Department anti-trust investigation.
Michael Andretti stepped aside a few months ago, clearing the field for GM and TWG Global.
GM said Mario Andretti, 84, will serve on the new team’s board of directors.
