Cadillac is unlikely to win a Formula 1 race anytime soon, but even before its cars have hit the grid it can consider its move into the sport a success.
The American luxury brand has already seen a massive increase in brand awareness, expanding its reach beyond North America and across the rest of the world. That’s according to Cadillac global marketing boss, Brand Franz, who pointed to the brand’s social media engagement as a key sign the move into F1 is already paying off.
“We’re hearing of people going out and buying Cadillacs for the first time just because of this F1 deal,” Franz said.
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“It’s been incredible. Our research shows we’ve had over 500 million impressions, since we’ve made that announcement, of people seeing the word Cadillac around the world for the first time.
“What we’re more excited about is adding 450,000 race fans – that’s how many people have followed our F1 team on Instagram since we announced.”
Cadillac is entering F1 at the same time it expands sales to more markets in the world, having primarily focused on North America until recently. Australia is a key market for that, with the Lyriq recently going on sale, with the high-performance Lyriq V-Series set to join in 2026 and the Optiq and Lyriq also locked in for local launch.
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Franz said the growth of the sport in the USA has been a driving factor in the decision to commit to such a program.
“Just eyeballs,” Franz said. “Eyeballs and… NASCAR has been sort of the premier race platform in terms of just its audience, its size. But, you know, F1 continues to grow each year here, and I think the popularity or just four or five years ago, you know, some of my friends even thought, ‘What are you getting up for to watch a race, right?’
“So I think just the hold of F1 and the awareness of it and just the excitement in the US absolutely is growing. We have the numbers to show that, but also just what it’s meant for Cadillac and just getting folks set, maybe haven’t been much of a race fan, getting involved with that one just because of the noise that this has been making from the positive sense has us excited. It’s a platform that we’re gonna go into to help drive this brand globally.”
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