As recently as a couple of months ago, the idea of Formula One expanding beyond its existing 10-team, 20-car grid anytime soon seemed fanciful.
F1 had made clear in January when it rejected Andretti Global’s proposal to set up a new team that would race starting in 2026 that it needed convincing that expansion was the right thing to do.
The sport has surged in popularity since Liberty Media completed its acquisition in 2017 — also the last time there were 11 teams, with Manor folding after the 2016 season — and resulted in a boom in revenues. The potential of anything upsetting that, or failing to bring more value, was often cited as a reason to say no to Andretti.
But now that has changed. F1 announced on Monday that it had reached an “agreement in principle” for General Motors to establish its own team beginning in 2026 after the American automotive giant took over the reins of Andretti’s F1 plans. All being well, Cadillac will join the grid as an 11th team, expanding the field to 22 cars and drivers.
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That expansion could flare many of the concerns that were raised through the rejection of Andretti. An 11th team will still result in a dilution of the prize money that some of the existing teams feared could lead to instability. It was a misgiving that was labeled by Michael Andretti, who previously oversaw the entry project, as “greed,” while the Department of Justice’s anti-trust division moved to investigate Liberty over the rejection.
General Motors’ plan to enter F1 gathered significant steam in only a couple of months due to some key differences, paving the way for the expansion so many fans have been crying out for.
The first thing to note is that F1 was always receptive to the idea of General Motors entering the sport. The more road car manufacturers on the grid, the better. For 2026, it already has Ferrari, Mercedes, Honda, Audi and Ford (through Red Bull) signed up, while Renault has involvement as the owner of Alpine, even if the team will switch to Mercedes engines. Particularly in an era where the United States is F1’s biggest target market for growth, having both General Motors and Ford on the grid would be a huge coup.
F1 said when rejecting Andretti in January that it “would look differently on an application for the entry of a team into the 2028 championship with a GM power unit, either as a GM works team or as a GM customer team designing all allowable components in-house.” In short, instead of having an Andretti team that works with General Motors, a fully-fledged General Motors team would give F1 the value it wanted from any new applicant.
Andretti always positioned itself as planning to be a works operation, leaning on the fact it would be an all-American team and emphasizing the partnership with General Motors as being far more than a sponsorship agreement. But it had to make that more explicit and lean heavier on that involvement.
It’s something that became clear to those overseeing Andretti’s F1 bid, particularly Dan Towriss, who is a shareholder in the company and has led the efforts in recent months to get General Motors through the door. Towriss took over the reins of Andretti Global at the end of September after Michael Andretti stepped down as CEO and chairman, moving away from an operational role.
The understanding from Towriss and Co. that General Motors, not Andretti, had to be at the heart of the bid helped accelerate talks with F1 and bred a more conciliatory approach. Instead of comments being made in the media or frustrations getting aired publicly, everything moved along quickly behind closed doors. Little got out about just how close General Motors was to joining the grid until the Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend, when the story emerged on Friday.
A General Motors team could offer F1 what it wanted to expand the grid: value. Andretti itself was unable to do that in quite the same way, no matter how close its ties to General Motors would have been.
Even with General Motors joining the grid and not Andretti, some of the concerns rival team principals have raised in the past remain valid, relating directly to the number of teams on the grid. There is the dilution debate and the inevitable reduction in prize money, with F1’s total payout to teams being cut 11 ways instead of 10.
To make up for this, any new entrant is required to pay a fee split between the current teams. The most recent Concorde Agreement — the commercial terms between F1, the FIA (F1’s regulator) and the teams — was signed in 2020 and set this at $200 million. Still, there have been talks to at least triple this figure by 2026, when the next Concorde Agreement will begin, reflecting the swell in F1 team values over the past five years.
Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the FIA president, has always believed the teams’ aversion to expanding the grid related to their financial motives, and not other arguments such as having enough room in the pit lane. Ben Sulayem, who has long supported expanding the grid and encouraged General Motors to build its own F1 engine, noted last year that the regulations permitted up to 12 teams, and that an unofficial 11th already existed: APXGP, the fictional team from next year’s F1 movie starring Brad Pitt, has a full garage setup at some F1 weekends.
In recognition of the value General Motors will bring to F1, teams also now appear to be receptive to the idea. In Las Vegas, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff, Ferrari F1 chief Fred Vasseur and McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown all made positive noises about expanding the grid for another manufacturer. The trio had previously highlighted the issues surrounding expansion, with Wolff suggesting in July of last year that it could be a “safety concern” to have another team.
The teams, though, did not have an official say. The approval process relied on two parties alone: the FIA and F1. The FIA was required to give its blessing from a technical and sporting point of view, which it did to Andretti last October, before F1 then ruled on the commercial merits of the bid. So long as F1 said yes, what the teams thought did not really matter. It means that even if there is lingering concern from other teams about expanding the grid for General Motors, F1 makes the only call that counts.
F1 will have been convinced that expanding for General Motors is in the sport’s best interests. Not only is it going to bring another major American manufacturer to the grid, serving as a coup that speaks to F1’s global relevance, but it could also bring huge commercial benefits — something Towriss was eager to highlight to The Athletic during a visit to Andretti’s UK F1 base back in April when, despite being rejected, it continued to lay the foundations for an F1 entry.
“Sponsors want to see the relevance, they want to see the connection with the U.S. fans,” Towriss said. “So there really is a desire for a U.S. team, even if the sponsor is sponsoring a UK team or something like that, it’s more relevant when there are U.S. fans because there’s a U.S. team, there’s a knock-on effect that will happen there.
“We’re hearing it from those corporate partners, and so we’re convinced of it. Again, we’re going to add value to everybody on the series when we come in.”
F1 will hope expanding the grid creates commercial value — and also opportunities. With another team, there will be two extra spots on the grid for drivers — and their associated sponsors — to join the field. Given the huge amount of talent currently on the sidelines or knocking on F1’s door to get a seat — Franco Colapinto being one talent who could well be on the sidelines next year — having two more berths will relieve a little bit of pressure in the driver market, and create an exciting new opportunity for any interested drivers.
The overwhelmingly positive reaction from fans to the news the grid will expand in 2026 is giving early justification to F1’s decision. But it hasn’t changed tune on expansion. From the very start, it was always receptive to an 11th team, so long as the terms were right.
The difference between now and its January rejection of Andretti is that with General Motors, it has exactly what it wanted all along.
(Top illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; photos: Jakub Porzycki / NurPhoto; Mark Thompson / Getty Images; Alessio Morgese / NurPhoto; Jeff Kowalsky / Bloomberg)
