Formula 1, the most renowned auto racing competition, is gearing up for the first race of its World Championship season this weekend.

Metro Detroit fans, in particular, have a new reason to watch. For the first time, General Motors is entering the competition, while Ford is returning to F1 after a long absence.

Ford’s grand reveal

Earlier this year, the Ford Motor Company turned the Michigan Central station into a gala event attended by thousands, with millions more viewing it online.

It was all to celebrate a new paint scheme.

Specifically, the latest colors for the cars of Ford’s racing team partner, Red Bull Formula 1— a team that has won multiple F1 championships.

Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. told the crowd that racing is in the Dearborn-based automaker’s blood.

“125 years ago, my great grandfather Henry Ford won a race right here in Detroit to help launch the Ford Motor Company,” he said. “Alongside Red Bull, we intend to make history again. And to quote my uncle, Henry Ford II, ‘let’s go like hell.’”

Ford is helping Red Bull build its own engine, a process that’s taken years.

Reasons for Ford’s return

The automaker’s global director of racing, Mark Rushbrook, says rule changes mandating different types of chassis and new hybrid engines drew Ford to F1.

But he also notes that there’s been an explosion of interest in Formula 1 in the U.S.

It’s been sparked by Brad Pitt’s recent feature film about F1 and the Netflix TV show “Drive to Survive.”

Rushbrook says that makes investing in the series worthwhile for both the company and people looking to buy a Ford. 

“In Formula 1 we’re gonna have a great audience, great diversity in that audience. But there’s so much innovation and tech transfer that will make it onto our vehicles that we sell to our customers,” he said.

GM joins the race

It’s been more than two decades since Ford was in F1.

And now, for the first time ever, the pinnacle of racing includes Ford’s crosstown competitor, General Motors.

“We took the decision to come into Formula 1 before GM did because we wanted to race against Ferrari, Mercedes and we knew Audi was coming in,” Rushbrook said. “We believe it’s great that GM is coming in with Cadillac. It’s not necessarily a rivalry, per se.” 

Starting from scratch

GM, in fact, faces additional challenges.

Ford is joining the established Red Bull team. But the head of Cadillac’s F1 effort, team principal Graeme Lowdon, says General Motors is creating an entire Formula 1 car, plus eventually an engine, completely from scratch. 

“This team has grown from a sheet of paper, literally a blank sheet of paper, he said.”

Cadillac had to design and build a car while hiring enough people to staff a F1 team that typically employs 1000 people, including engineers, attorneys, marketers and others.

Lowdon likens it to the complexity and compressed timeframe of the Apollo project to land a human on the moon.

But although it will be based in the U.S., Lowdon said on the official F1 podcast “Beyond the Grid” the team is still grooming U.S. driving talent.

“Because we talk to the fans we know it’s something that they want to see—an American driver in an American car, ultimately with an American engine,” Lowdon said. “But this is Formula 1. You can’t go for second best just because it ticks some other box, because you’re not going to win.”

A dream come true

Cadillac made it to the track for test sessions earlier this year, but they faced some difficulty on the way.

Formula 1’s management initially rejected U.S. race team owner Michael Andretti’s joint bid with Cadillac to enter the series. The team was accepted after both Michael Andretti and a high-level F1 management official stepped down.

Some in Congress had also threatened to launch an anti-trust investigation, claiming F1 should not be allowed to hold races in the U.S. and then forbid a U.S. automaker from entering the series.

Cadillac kept an Andretti presence in the fold, appointing Michael Andretti’s father, legendary racer Mario Andretti, a board member of the team.

Cadillac even named its first Formula 1 car’s serial number after him, the MAC-26, as in Mario Andretti Cadillac of 2026.

Andretti says the result fulfills a dream he’s had since the 1960’s.

That’s when he says he met Zora Arkus-Duntov, who had turned GM’s Corvettes into race cars. 

“He knew the importance of F1,” Andretti remembered. “I kept saying, ‘Zora, you gotta get General Motors into Formula 1.’ He said, ‘Oh Mario, I speak, I speak. No one hear me.’ But now they heard.”

And GM officials say finally entering F1’s first race in Australia does not mean Cadillac has reached the finish line.

They say it’s just the start.