Ford v Cadillac? Exchange of barbed digs stokes F1 2026 rivalry
An F1 rivalry is already brewing on the eve of the new season...
A wheel hasn’t even been turned in the 2026 season and F1 already has a heated rivalry brewing.
Cadillac and Ford have reignited their rivalry ahead of the 2026 season. Cadillac will debut in F1 this year having joined the grid as the 11th team, while fellow American automotive giant Ford is re-entering the sport as a technical partner to Red Bull’s in-house power unit project.
The CEO of Cadillac’s F1 operation fired the first shot by claiming that Ford’s entry with Red Bull is simply a marketing exercise.
“It’s not even close,” Dan Towriss told The Athletic. “One is a marketing deal with very minimal impact, while GM is an equity owner (in the Cadillac team).
“They’re deeply embedded from an engineering standpoint, and they were involved from day one. Those two deals couldn’t be more different.”
Ford bite back at Cadillac
However, Ford executives quickly hit back, pointing to the fact Cadillac will be using a supplied engine.
Cadillac have struck a deal to use Ferrari engines until GM’s own power unit is ready. GM has already been formally approved as an F1 engine supplier for the 2029 season.
Ford Motor Company executive chairman, Bill Ford, told The Athletic that he “started to laugh” upon hearing Cadillac’s dig, which he labeled “patently absurd”.
“I would say, actually, the reverse is true,” Ford swiped back. “They’re running a Ferrari engine. They’re not running a Cadillac engine. I don’t know if they have any GM employees on the race team.”
Meanwhile, Will Ford, the general manager of Ford Performance, insisted: “Nothing could be further from the truth, in terms of our partnership with Red Bull being a marketing effort.”
He added: “We could have spent a lot of money to slap our logo on a car, or to put our name alongside a team. But we made a very deliberate decision to form Red Bull Ford Powertrains, as a true technical partnership and really complement the audacious effort that Red Bull decided to set down on in developing their own power unit.
“And we found the areas where Ford can uniquely complement the skills and capabilities that Red Bull has, given the size and breadth and technical expertise within our organisation, with the intention of creating the best power unit in F1, just like we did in decades past.”
Red Bull and sister team Racing Bulls will reveal their 2026 livery on Thursday night (Friday morning UK time) at a season launch event in Detroit.
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