Andretti Cadillac to outsource F1 power unit

Andretti Global and General Motors, through Cadillac announced their plans to enter F1 on Thursday soon after the FIA announced the initiation of the process to qualify a new team earlier this week.

The move, as exciting as it may be, raised questions about how the Andretti and GM plan to tackle this process, especially in terms of the power unit, as F1 plans to introduce a new design in 2026, with Audi joining the sport based on that.

Details have started to emerge in that regards, and it seems Cadillac will not be building a new power unit from scratch, as GM president Mark Reuss revealed they will be buying their power units as a start.

"We have a signed agreement with a power unit supplier to begin with and then as we move forward, we bring a lot of our expertise to create things for the future as well," Reuss said, quoted by Racer. With Michael Andretti commenting: "It would be more a collaboration with another manufacturer."

GM are known to have a collaboration with Honda in the field of electric vehicles, but Reuss downplayed that connection with relation to Andretti Cadillac's F1 efforts.

He explained: "On the EV part of it we do have a larger partnership with Honda but also compete against them in series like IndyCar as well, so we have that natural respect and relationship which is not problematic at all. We’ll talk about the engine piece of this at a later date."

Reuss revealed that, despite GM thinking about an F1 foray for some time now, talks with Andretti on the project were initiated only a few months ago.

He said: "I would say during what timeframe, would be the qualifier on that! At some point, General Motors during the history of, at least in my career, we would have loved to have gotten into Formula 1. But for various reasons, it was pretty tough to do that.

"Whether it was the leadership or the amount of money at that time, or where the company was, where the economy was, whatever those reasons were, over a long period of time, they were different. But I would say this opportunity, and Michael (Andretti), was just really, really important to us.

"So I would say, we weren’t searching necessarily to do it. But Michael kicked it off. And we were just, I personally was really over the moon. So it was great. And it just evolved in a really positive way," Reuss maintained.