Bill Ford, the executive chairman of major American car manufacturer Ford Motor Company, hit back at the CEO of Cadillac F1 Team, Dan Towriss, for his recent comments calling Ford’s partnership with Red Bull “a marketing deal.” Ford feels differently, saying to The Athletic of Cadillac F1, “If anything looks like a marketing effort, that does.”
This season, Ford is rejoining the Formula One grid for the first time since leaving Jaguar Racing after the 2004 season, when Red Bull acquired the team. For the past three years, Ford has worked with Red Bull to develop the new power unit for 2026, a year when the technical regulations are changing significantly.
General Motors is also joining the grid this season, as Cadillac becomes the sport’s 11th team. When comparing GM’s involvement in F1 to Ford’s, Towriss felt there was a substantial difference in scale.
“It’s not even close,” Towriss said. “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 told The Athletic that when he saw the remarks from GM, he “was stunned” and “started to laugh,” calling it “patently absurd.”
“I would say, actually, the reverse is true,” Ford said. “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.”
The Athletic has reached out to Cadillac F1 for comment.
Will Ford, the general manager for Ford Performance, echoed Bill’s comments, adding, “Nothing could be further from the truth, in terms of our partnership with Red Bull being a marketing effort.”
According to the company, Ford Racing engineers are working at Milton Keynes with the Red Bull Powertrains team, and Ford team members in Dearborn, Michigan, are providing support. One area Ford has contributed to is 3D-printed parts for the power unit, which have reduced parts production times during development. But it’s also extended to tools and software developed by Ford members that support battery cell management, battery deployment, and engine calibration.
Creating a new power unit is complex, and electrification will increase in this generation. It’s taken significant collaboration to create a Red Bull Ford power unit, with the two sides partnering on areas such as the energy reserve system.
“We could have spent a lot of money to slap our logo on a car, or to put our name alongside a team,” Will said to The Athletic. “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 organization, with the intention of creating the best power unit in F1, just like we did in decades past.”
