F1 Has Broken Big Automakers Before. Here’s What Cadillac and Ford Can Learn From Past Failures.

If you’re a racing fan, you’re no doubt aware that both Cadillac and Ford are involved in the 2026 Formula 1 racing season—but at very different levels. The Blue Oval’s participation takes the form of powertrain partner for the Red Bull Racing and Racing Bulls teams, while Cadillac’s effort is a full-fledged entry that represents the first all-new blood in the series since the American-owned Haas team’s debut in 2016.

Neither Ford nor Cadillac are strangers to motorsports, of course. Ford has an extensive track record of winning championships at nearly every level of racing—including supplying F1 teams with engines and once upon a time backing/owning the Stewart- and then Jaguar-branded team that later became Red Bull Racing—with periods of dominance in NASCAR. Cadillac has been active in sports car and touring competition since the early 2000s, scoring both drivers’ and manufacturers’ titles in SCCA GT and Pirelli GT Challenge. This was followed by similar success in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with prototype racers, a program that continues today.

A Different Ball Game

That being said, open-wheel racing in general—and F1 in particular—is an entirely different beast than any other existing on-track effort from either of these Detroit automakers. Perhaps no one knows this better than Ford: After decades of building successful F1 engines in partnership with Cosworth, it tried and failed to expand its effort after it took full control of Jackie Stewart’s eponymous team and renamed it Jaguar Racing for the 2000 season. The final tally of zero wins and zero championships saw the company retreat from open-wheel competition almost entirely after 2004.

Ford’s experience with F1’s ability to chew up millions of dollars and spit them out in the form of back-marker finishes is perhaps what has informed its more measured return to the sport now. Cadillac, on the other hand, is all-in on spending whatever it takes to ensure a positive result right out of the gate. That has all eyes on the Detroit-based brand.

History has shown that enormous investment and success in another series doesn’t always translate into taming F1. Cadillac can learn a lot from the mistakes made by three other highly touted open-wheel efforts from respected automakers. These internationally recognized racing stalwarts saw their plans for dominance laid to waste despite the best of intentions and deep pockets, providing a perfect template for how not to win in racing’s most challenging venues.

Don’t Cut Corners Like Alfa Romeo

In 1990, Alfa Romeo seemingly stumbled into an incredible opportunity. Corporate sibling Ferrari had been using a threatened Indy-car racing program to bend F1 bosses to its will throughout the late 1980s, going so far as to design a chassis and an engine in preparation for a 1987 Indy-car entry.

When Ferrari abandoned the effort, it offered the engine to Alfa Romeo as the backbone of the latter’s own initial CART Indy-car team. Partnering with chassis builder March (which was on the downswing after success in the early ’80s), the team was slapped together quickly and ran several test races in 1989, with a full season on the schedule the following year.

It was obvious immediately that the Ferrari-sourced V-8 was not producing the power needed to stick to the front of the pack. It also simply couldn’t overcome the drag attached to the aero needed to grip the car to the racing surface, making it shine only occasionally during qualifying. Trading the ’89 March chassis for a Lola in ’90 yielded no better results, underscoring the lack of development that went into the Alfa/Ferrari engine (which also proved remarkably unreliable).

By 1991, despite ample feedback provided by driver Danny Sullivan to Alfa Romeo’s engineering team about how long it took the turbo V-8 to get up to speed on the circuit, the situation remained just as dire. The automaker pulled its support from the team at the end of the year, leaving behind a record of no podiums, no poles, and no willingness to invest the resources and time required to succeed in open-wheel racing.

Toyota: You Can’t Necessarily Buy Success

Toyota’s F1 arrival in 2002 was heralded as the dawn of a new era. Many immediately assumed the giant automaker, which had achieved success in every series it had ever entered, would extend its winning ways and draw in brand-new fans while further globalizing F1.

Eight futile years later, it was clear Toyota had adopted the entirely wrong approach to its F1 team. In 139 races, it only managed to achieve 13 podium finishes and no wins. This was an incredible failure from a car company that spent billions of dollars competing at open-wheel racing’s highest level.

The spending may very well have been Toyota’s weakness. With virtually unlimited engineering resources at its disposal, the company appeared to assume it would be able to R&D its way to the front of the pack, using its money as the muscle required to create a winning car.

This approach came with two problems. One was the intense political infighting that defines the F1 world. By banding together, competing teams were able to put an end to Toyota’s initial plans to use a V-12 engine, moving the grid to 10-cylinder units and sinking the Japanese company’s existing investment in developing its 12-cylinder before its first season even began. Toyota’s inability to understand or engage in the series’ constantly shifting skullduggery and diplomacy continued to hurt the team throughout its existence.

The other issue? Toyota was unbending in its interpretation of how to win at racing, ignoring the extremely rapid pace of development and decision making (and significantly increased aero demands) attached to F1. It was as though the company felt that by raining cash on the same rigid development style it had adopted in other forms of motorsports, it could somehow overpower F1’s established wisdom.

The latter saw Toyota bosses regularly blaming drivers for poor results; stocking its team with engineers, designers, and even leaders whose experience elsewhere meant little in the F1 paddock; and imposing corporate decisions (such as moving from Michelin tires to Bridgestone tires) against the racing division’s wishes. The lack of F1 experience and the team’s inflexible structure ensured no amount of cash could buy wins, let alone a championship.

Don’t Change Course Midstream, Like Lotus

Alfa Romeo and Toyota each had their issues with uncompetitive engines during their open-wheel efforts, but at least they were never sued by members of their own race teams because their powerplants were too slow.

That’s exactly the situation that vaunted motorsports icon Lotus faced in the 2012 IndyCar Series. The company joined the Indy tour that year as an engine supplier during a rules makeover that also attracted Chevrolet to return to the series. Alongside Honda, that meant three options for teams to choose from, creating a situation celebrated by fans who thought increased drivetrain competition would improve the racing’s overall quality.

While Chevy’s effort was successful, Lotus was behind the eight ball immediately. How bad was it? Despite decades of open-wheel success elsewhere, the company was seemingly unable to deliver the twin-turbo V-6s promised to its partner teams in time for proper testing. When they did arrive, they were so low on power as to be legitimately dangerous—two Lotus-powered cars were black-flagged during the Indy 500 that year for running 14 mph slower than the race leaders.

The fallout was severe. Dragon Racing sued Lotus for damages and the right to cancel its engine supply contract after being extorted by Lotus to keep sending payments despite no engines actually being delivered. A failure to convince the sport’s governing body to allow it to run more turbo boost than the rulebook allowed (to make up the power gap) meant the writing was on the wall. At the end of the season, IndyCar allowed Lotus to slip the bonds of its series contract just one year into its five-year term.

Forensic accounting and the benefit of hindsight reveal the real reason Lotus failed so spectacularly in IndyCar was due to behind-the-scenes machinations that threw a massive wrench into the company’s direction. An ownership change shortly before the start of the 2012 season saw its existing commitment at odds with the new regime’s desire to focus on selling street cars. It’s not an unfamiliar disconnect in the racing world, but it’s one that almost always proves disastrous.

During the transition period between old and new masters, Lotus’ engine development was virtually frozen, leaving its contracted teams to make do with the results achieved prior to the purchase. Shifting corporate goals midstream is a surefire way to doom any racing effort no matter how well-intentioned it might be at the outset. It usually hobbles any opportunity to learn from on-track results and to continuously refine an engine or chassis program throughout the season.

Additional photos provided by IndyCar