Wolff: Cadillac and GM, that's a statement

Early in January, FIA President, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, announced that F1's governing body have initiated the process of accepting a new team into the sport.

Shortly after that, Andretti Global announced their bid to become the 11th F1 team on the grid, with Cadillac joining forces with them, an announcement despite applauded by Ben Sulayem, was met with a lukewarm reaction from other F1 stakeholders.

Since then, Ben Sulayem and Michael Andretti were on the offensive, the first expressing his surprise from subdued reaction to Andretti-Cadillac's announcement, the second accusing F1 teams of being greedy.

One of the staunchest opposers to an extra F1 team, ever since Andretti expressed their interest, even before Cadillac came on board, is Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, who was recently asked about the matter in a joint media session with James Vowles on the occasion of the announcement of the latter's move to Williams as team boss.

"Cadillac and GM, that's a statement," Wolff reacted to the question. "Them joining forces with Andretti is definitely a positive. It gives it another angle that may or may not be beneficial for Formula 1.

"But definitely something... how can I find the right word here... nobody would ever question GM or Cadillac's pedigree in motorsport or as a global auto company," he added.

Wolff was clearly not willing to support the Andretti-Cadillac bid, but was quite diplomatic trying not to offend Cadillac and General Motors.

Vowles on the other hand was emulating his former boss at Mercedes when asked to express his opinion regarding Andretti-Cadillac.

"The truth behind it is that the sport financially is becoming more and more successful," Vowles said. "Whoever joins in that environment, effectively needs to bring with it the growth that is required in order for everyone else to be in a better position... or at least a neutral position. And that's been the statement from the beginning.

"There are a lot of lovely things about Andretti and about Cadillac. It just needs to have good understanding of how it will grow the sport and in what way and what the growth will be," the new Williams boss said.

With Williams being owned by Dorilton Capital, a U.S. firm, it would be interesting to see what the team's stance would be on Andretti-Cadillac in the future, and whether the Wolff-effect will remain with Vowles.