Cadillac to open F1 engine factory on 18 December

Cadillac will open its Formula 1 engine factory on 18 December, General Motors has announced. Located in Charlotte, North Carolina, it marks a concrete step in preparing the power unit the manufacturer wants to develop for its F1 programme. For now, the team uses customer Ferrari engines, and its maiden season has been difficult so far.

The significance goes beyond opening a building. The FIA approved General Motors in 2025 as a power-unit supplier from the 2029 season. The manufacturer still has to design its own unit, while a possible change to the rules could alter the project’s technical horizon: FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem has committed to bringing V8 engines back to F1 by 2031. They could run on sustainable fuel with a smaller share of electric power. That prospect makes the timetable particularly important, although the technical direction is not yet settled.

“We’re opening our whole engine factory, if you will, in Charlotte, North Carolina, on 18 December,” General Motors president Mark Reuss said at a conference at Autosport Business Exchange in New York. He added that the project was progressing well. The date provides a clear marker for work spanning the facility, the engine and the building of the team.

Reuss also underlined Cadillac’s ambition and the work required to achieve it. “We’re not here to finish last, so we’ve got to follow through and build this team, build the powertrain and build the car, like we did in GTP,” he said. He stressed that progress takes time because the team must bring together the right people, engineers and drivers, and then get the process properly under way. In his view, that progress does not follow a linear curve.

The executive also praised the drivers’ approach. He said they understood the demands and stages of the project, and that he was “very, very happy that they’re patient with us”. Reuss also described how they respond to mistakes or difficult days: learning from them, then continuing to work towards improvement, whether with the car or in their own preparation. For Cadillac, the factory opening is therefore part of a broader undertaking, with the next task being to turn the resources committed into a power unit ready for F1.