Welcome to the RACER mailbag. If you have any questions for the RACER writers, please send them to mailbag@racer.com. We’d love to hear your thoughts and opinions. However, letters that include questions are more likely to be published. Questions received after 3pm every Monday will be saved for the following week.
Q: It may sound capricious, but after seeing Formula 1 suddenly open talks with General Motors after Michael Andretti resigned, I’d like to see a complete power shift away from GM once negotiations are completed.
“After careful consideration, we have decided that Formula 1 would not provide sufficient value to the General Motors brand to justify the additional disruption to the series.”
A third supplier of IndyCar engines instead?
Brad, Seattle, Washington
MARSHALL PRUETT: I’ve been hearing rumors of a GM-to-IndyCar move since 2010, but I can’t find any evidence that it will happen. Fingers crossed.
Q: In the announcement that Wayne Taylor Racing will run the Cadillac GTP program in IMSA in 2025, you did not mention Andretti Global as a partner. According to a RACER.com article, Wayne Taylor said the team name was changed from WTRAndretti to WTR at Cadillac’s request. Is Andretti Global still involved? There seems to be more to this once the names of important partners are removed from the team name.
What are the latest unrealistic developments regarding Andretti Global/Cadillac’s efforts to break into F1? Will Andretti Global F1 facilities actually continue to staff and work on the 2026 cars? I’ve read speculation that there may be a compromise in the works to allow an 11th team onto the grid, with Michael Andretti and Greg Maffei stepping out of their respective roles and the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation progressing. Comments from Mario Andretti and Eddie Jordan recently suggest something is on the way sooner rather than later.
David, Danville, California
MP: You sent this message ahead of Monday’s official confirmation that the Cadillac F1 program will be approved for 2026, but as I wrote in the first Mailbag after Michael was removed from his team, all my sources say this is a high-level estimate for 2026. It was considered a move. It removes a problematic aspect from Cadillac’s efforts to reach F1.
Liberty Media had major problems with Andretti. And as I heard, General Motors also raised concerns. Unhappy with too much drama and instability towards the public, an initiative to move forward without distraction was hatched by Michael Andretti to put Cadillac in the 11th F1 entry slot.
Everything we’ve seen since then has been consistent with what the source stated in September. Because that’s exactly what was revealed. We also mentioned how the F1 team was presented as Andretti+Cadillac in everything before Michael’s departure, and how in the post-Michael world the new positioning was presented with Cadillac as a participant minus the Andretti name. However, this does not mean that Andretti’s team is leaving.
Consider the Sauber F1 team, forever changed to Sauber, or some version of Sauber, and how from 2019 to 2023 they took a step back and changed their name to Alfa Romeo Racing. We all knew that it was Sauber that built the cars and ran the team, but it was presented as Alfa. This is what is happening now with Andretti removed from the Cadillac-F1 routine.
On the WTR side, Andretti Global is involved, but mostly in name through ownership of WTR rather than participating in the day-to-day activities of the team. Andretti applied a significant level of supervision and involvement in his first season in 2023, but the results were not harmonious. Andretti stepped back and made WTR the WTR in 2024. This has been and continues to be a much better outcome.
Despite a brief run in the former American Le Mans Series in the sports car category, Andretti Global is not an expert in IMSA or the hybrid GTP, but WTR is one of the best and is recently transitioning to stand-alone operation. A smart company from the parent company.
If GM joins IndyCar as a manufacturer, I will celebrate by wearing fancy clothes like a bow tie at the press conference. Photo by Matt Fraver/IMS
Q: I’ve been to Roush Automotive Collection a few times whenever they had an open house when NASCAR came to Michigan. There’s a Whistler Mercury Cougar IMSA GTO car, and nearby is Tommy Kendall’s All Sport Mustang, which he raced in a Trans Am. Just looking at the bodywork, the IMSA GTO and Trans Am cars from the late 80s and early 90s seem to look quite similar. What are the similarities and differences between the IMSA GTO and Trans Am from that era, and can cars from competing sanctioning bodies compete in both series?
Brandon Kasten
MP: Roush regularly rebuilt the Bob Riley-designed tubeframe Ford/Lincoln Mercury/Merkur GTO and Trans Am cars for use in both series. Engine displacement and configuration were the main differentiating factors, but other than paint and stickers the cars were virtually identical.
Q: You said on the podcast a couple of weeks ago that when the new chassis comes out, there will only be 25 of them, not 27 like the current IndyCar. What is the reason and which team will lose the car?
Indianapolis Paul, Indiana
MP: It’s not official, but every team owner I’ve talked to regarding charters has said that at some point they expect Penske Entertainment to reduce the field from a maximum of 27 to 25, while also releasing a new car.
There is no answer as to where the two deleted cars came from as they were never officially adopted. But I’ll start with three car teams (Andretti, Ganassi, McLaren, RLL and Penske) as first candidates to pick one car. Another option that needs to be addressed is whether charter version 2.0 would allow more non-charter entries to qualify for those 25 spots, assuming the 25 vehicle limit is implemented.
Would one of the three-car teams trim down two charter cars and, if allowed, try to race in a third, newly non-charter car?
Q: Good point in that you not only put one of FOX’s favorites in the 500 Pace Car, but you also used a significant portion of the main NFL pregame show to get the word out to the Sunday noon NFL audience. Now, Michael Strahan may have had a better idea of some of the details of what he was about to do, but it’s good that he took Will Power’s car and pace car into the studio and spent a lot of time with it. signs.
Aitch, Richmond, Virginia
MP: This is the latest example of the FOX deal being the biggest accomplishment since Penske Entertainment acquired the series. FOX’s NFL pregame show is sponsored by Verizon, so using the Power’s Verizon-sponsored vehicles during filming was a smart and obvious choice.
But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I hadn’t told you. In a paddock always on guard for potential conflicts of interest in a Penske-owned series, Penske is also competing, but not all reactions. This was positive.
One call suggested that Penske was offering the opportunity to profit from one of his cars on a big, nationally televised TV show in exchange for helping one of the other (presumably less financially secure) IndyCar teams use the car. I asked why I was using it. It was a hit to garner significant sponsors. I can see how Penske-helping-Penske has helped some people, and I would agree if the show wasn’t sponsored by Verizon. But I disagree because this made sense to me.
