Cadillac's stars-and-stripes Miami debut as the new F1 team races on US soil

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — It was less than 14 months ago that Cadillac's frustrating push to enter Formula 1 finally came to an end and the team was approved to compete in the global motorsports series. 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 — Haas F1 is owned by California businessman Gene Haas — and represents the American dream. The effort to enter F1 began with Michael Andretti, son of motorsports' 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's primary partner, TWG AI. The design integrates a stars and stripes motif in Cadillac's signature black and white color scheme, includes 50 stars on the front of the car and "USA" 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. "Racing at home for the first time is a major milestone for this team and something we've been looking forward to for a long time," said Dan Towriss, CEO of the team and a part-time Fort Lauderdale resident. "There's 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're focused on showing up and delivering for them." 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's race ranked 10th ahead of Aston Martin in the constructors' standings. 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's practice for the junior series and the plan now would eventually make him the only American driver on the F1 grid. 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 "a fairly substantial upgrade package" for Miami. "It's 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," team principal Graeme Lowdon said. "It's a mixture of aero and a bit of weight saving as well. It's reasonably sizeable. We'll be watching the performance of the upgrade with great interest because there's an awful lot that we need to verify that other teams will be well down the route of doing." 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. "I hope that we can make a bigger step than some other teams," Bottas said. "Because we should be able to do that in theory from where we started. So that's the goal. In the first three races I felt like every race was getting smoother and smoother, less and less issues." Lowdon, however, acknowledged that Cadillac is still in its teething phase as it competes against long tenured teams. "We're racing against teams that have done literally thousands of grand prixs," Lowdon said. "If there is a thing such as team muscle memory how you operate, other teams have that advantage. Everything for us is new." That includes the attention the team is receiving. 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. "It's our fourth race, but it's our first time to race our Cadillac F1 on American soil, it's super special," Campbell said. "We've 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."