General Motors brand Cadillac spent up to $20m on its Formula 1 livery reveal during the NFL’s Super Bowl, team CEO Dan Towriss has suggested.
Cadillac’s first-ever F1 car took part in the Barcelona shakedown with a testing livery in late January, as it targeted the biggest possible audience – especially on its home market – to showcase its brand-new design while raising awareness of its F1 bid.
Cadillac therefore purchased a one-minute slot for a video featuring United States president John F. Kennedy’s 1962 “We choose to go to the Moon” speech. The footage depicted Cadillac’s preparations with a message: “The mission begins”.
Asked whether the cost was in the region of $10m per 30 seconds, Towriss said: “Yeah, it’s comparable. That’s a good estimate.”
Regardless of how much the advert actually cost, General Motors has been investing in its F1 team to make it as competitive as possible from the get-go, with several bases in the US as well as a Silverstone site.
Even in F1’s cost cap era, Towriss is expecting the outfit to lose money over 2026 and 2027.
Cadillac F1 livery
Photo by: Cadillac Communications
“It’s probably a couple of years before on an operating basis the team would be in the black or breaking even on a cash basis,” the American said, adding: “I think we’re ahead of what our projections were, knowing what it was going to take to get into Formula 1.”
In that context, sponsors will naturally be under scrutiny, with seemingly no major partner on Cadillac’s yet-to-be-named F1 car – but Towriss has made it clear that the TWG AI logo that adorns the sidepods is not a mere case of inside branding.
“When you consider the ownership between TWG and General Motors, it’s an arm’s-length contract, so this isn’t a placeholder, this isn’t a filler,” he insisted. “It’s a paying agreement. This isn’t a value-in-kind agreement, so it’s cashed into the team from that standpoint.”
Some fans lamented the colourless aspect of the black-and-white scheme – especially after Cadillac ran blue, red and yellow designs in the 2024 Le Mans 24 Hours, for instance – but there are several reasons why the brand opted for this livery.
“When we’re developing a scheme, we see real meaning in the colours,” Towriss explained.
“For us, black represents this bold attitude of the car. When you see the black side, it looks a little mean, it has some attitude. And then white, which is the actual racing colour of America. We wanted to have white on the car – it’s fresh, it’s clean, it’s optimistic. So it’s really the balance of those two.
“The livery is the identity of the team, and so this represents us. Some people look to the Cadillac badge, you see the red, yellow and blue. But when you get into the high performance, Cadillac goes monochromatic in their badging, a lot of times when you get into the V-Series [performance vehicles].
“That’s an element of the brand that we wanted to lean into for Formula 1, the pinnacle of motorsport. And so that’s how we ended up with the black, white, and chrome as the colours of this team.”
Cadillac’s newly revealed design made its track debut on Monday in a filming day at Bahrain International Circuit (pictured above), meaning it covered up to 200km with demonstration tyres supplied by Pirelli.
Race drivers Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas shared the new machinery, which previously completed three days’ worth of running in the Barcelona shakedown.
The first Bahrain pre-season test is taking place from 11-13 February, with all F1 teams expected to take part.
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– The Autosport.com Team
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