Cadillac is relying on its motorsport heritage to carve a path into the future

Cadillac are set to join the F1 grid in 2026.
Back in 1950, the first-ever Cadillac race cars debuted at the 24 Hours of Le Mans — one Cadillac Series 61, and one unrecognizable prototype made of sculpted bodywork. When it came time for the brand to consider how to grow its legacy, it once again looked to the racing scene of Europe.
In an exclusive interview with?Eric Warren, Executive Director for GM’s global motorsports competition, PlanetF1.com learned that Cadillac is keeping its tradition central to its growth in the racing world.
Even in racing, Cadillac is authentically Cadillac
Though General Motors’ participation in motorsport has been challenged by mind-numbing tragedies like the 1955 Le Mans disaster, or by growing fears around pedestrian safety and the message that motorsport sent, when it came time for the Cadillac brand to grow internationally, there was one key place to look: Motorsport.
“It’s good that the sports car has led Cadillac in Europe, because it is more identifiable, and it helps built that brand and that awareness,” Eric Warren told PlanetF1.com.
“That’s allowed us to attract global fans and customers to Cadillac.”
That move started with the LMDh interpretation of current GTP hypercar prototype regulations. These regulations were designed between both the global World Endurance Championship and the American IMSA SportsCar Championship, the goal being to encourage cross-series participation.
And for Cadillac, those regulations were massively appealing. On one hand was the regulatory freedom to give its LMDh machines the visual cues you’d recognize from Cadillac’s road cars, while on the other was the ability to push the boundaries of the company’s understandings of power unit engineering — all while relying on some tried-and-true American technology.
See, in both IMSA and WEC, Cadillac is the only manufacturer that opted to mate a V8 combustion engine to its hybrid powertrain. Everyone else opted for smaller engines — but it was critical that Cadillac go its own way.
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“With the V8, the decision to go naturally aspirated with the 5.5-liter — we had a lot of experience endurance racing with a V8 platform,” Warren explained.
“With the way the rules were, with the torque axles and a certain power curve, and [how] you could basically use the ICE component and the MGU and the hybrid however you felt like deploying it.
“From a center-of-gravity standpoint, from a durability standpoint, we knew we had confidence in the history of that technology. And of course, a lot of the American side of it, the V8, is really our bread and butter.”
Rather than have to deviate from its V8 tradition, Cadillac could fully adopt it. If you’ve attended an endurance race these past few years, you know that you don’t even need to look at the track to pinpoint the Cadillac; you can hear its unmistakable, chest-rattling V8 growl as it passes you by.
In that sense, endurance racing was the perfect bridge between the American and European consumer marketplaces, because endurance racing itself sits at the transition between combustion and electrification.
All GTP sports cars feature the aforementioned ICE mated to a hybrid system that relies on well-managed electric power to give competitors an edge over the competition. In that way, it provides Cadillac with the ability to use that V8 while also developing the sophisticated electric elements of its PU.
“Right now, it’s our flagship program for Cadillac,” Warren explained.
“As we go into F1, it’s a different technology play, it’s a different story. The F1 car, when you look at it, you don’t see Cadillac, whereas with the LMDh, we get the opportunity to inspire some direct design cues with customers to build that brand.”
But by the time Cadillac debuts its first Formula 1 chassis in 2026, it will have four years of international competition under its belt. It will have a consumer vehicle lineup increasingly dedicated to pure electrification. It will have more and more dealerships popping up across Europe. It will have established itself as an automaker to take seriously as a competitor.
Then, it can begin forging its new future in F1, where it will field its own Ferrari-powered chassis as it refines its own power unit. When the PU makes its debut, Cadillac will have comfortably used its heritage as a launch point for its future.
“We continue to build the heritage of racing in GM, and certainly building that heritage in Cadillac and across the world,” Warren explained.
“GM, we have racing at our core, so we’re really demonstrating how we can bring the engineering and the technology into performing on the race track.
“We’re in this race series to win. We’re not going to give up until we win.”
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