VP General Motors: 'Andretti Cadillac provides a platform for innovation'

It was recently announced that Michael Andretti and Cadillac, part of the General Motors group, will team up to secure a place in Formula 1 as a racing team. GM's vice president of the Performance & Motorsports branch, Jim Campbell, makes light of the usefulness of this entry into the sport.

The FIA is eager to allow Andretti Cadillac onto the grid, F1 itself a little less so. Nevertheless, enthusiasm within GM is high and they see the benefits of the potential US F1 team.

Andretti Cadillac provides innovation

“If you look over the history of the automobile industry and our time in racing, there have been many changes in technologies and innovations, many of which have come right from racing, but others that have started in automobile production that we brought into racing,” Campbell said in an interview with RACER.

So this interaction could do a lot of good for the future of the auto and motorsport industries. Significantly, GM is best known for its roaring engines, so entering F1 - an industry with hybrid systems and complex technologies - with Andretti Cadillac says a lot about GM's view of the future. F1 is, so to speak, a learning and testing ground for innovation.

Campbell: "So as the technologies change over time, we use this platform to learn quickly and apply to the production side of the business. This latest partnership and alignment with Andretti Global and General Motors featuring our Cadillac brand certainly puts another big racing series in the portfolio in which we compete. So we’re proud of that and excited for what’s possible.”