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This set of rules is here with us for five years, so it's not about the first racer too, it's about the next five years. Again, extremely confident. We have the right people, we have the right tools, we have the right processes, we have the right partners. So I'm very confident for extremely confident for our future.
So that was Laurence Stroll, the billionaire owner of the Aston Martin Aramco F one team. He sat down with me earlier to talk about his confidence in his team leading the high stakes motorsports category, but he faces challengers including General Motors Cadillac, which just unveiled it's four and to F one with a splashy Super Bowl commercial featuring the new Livery and joining us now live on the set is Dan Towers, the CEO of Cadillac Formula one
and this is a high stakes league here. Dan, very cool to see Cadillac GM coming in to this sport, especially at the same time as Ford, its crosstown rival, enters the scene.
But tell us.
About what your expectations are now, because you've had testing If I'm not mistaken in Barcelona and you're just about have testing in Bahrain with your yes.
So for us, Barcelona was mostly shakedown, so it's testing a lot of new systems and everybody's talked about the fact that it's a new chassis, so a new set of regulations, new tires, new power units. But for us, for Cadillac, we're building everything for the first time, the fuel system, you know, just all the pieces on the car, and so a lot of it was just reliability focused. As we go into Bahrain this week, we're very excited.
It's now start to push the limits of the car and to see what we see what we have.
You have incredibly experienced drivers right in valcher Botas and Sergio Perez. What did they make of the car? And you know what kind of feedback did you get from those superstars?
I think some of their feedback similar to the other drivers. There's a lot less load under the set of regulations on this car, which just means there's less downforce. The car is going to feel a little slippier to drive, and it's going to be a whole new technique as they figure how to use this power unit with the electrication piece and the combustion piece, you know, combined. So
again it's a very different. It's a very different car to drive this year, and so everybody's in a big learning curve right now.
And I mean to that point, to that learning curve, you're a newcomer in this space. I know that you've said previously that you want to be America's team in F one, and I wonder, you know what you see that looking like if your vision is actualized.
So it's really leaning into you know, a new fan base. If you think about the success that Drives to Survive has had or F one the movie which just you know, crushed every record, it's created a lot of F one curius fans in the US. And that was really the thought behind the super Bowl commercial. It's a big stage and we wanted to get to people that don't maybe consume F one every day. If I want to speak to the diehard motorsport fan, it's very easy to that.
You know, media ecosystem is very developed. The super Bowl let us, you know, create a conversation about Cadillac Formula one to people who, like I said, saw the movie, thought it was interesting and say wait this this team's going to be on track in thirty days. I need to check this out.
Well, That gets a little bit to what I was wondering, which is why is Super Bowl commercial? I mean, you take a look at some of the numbers. On average, I believe super Bowl ads were eight million dollars. We heard some reports that they got to ten million dollars for thirty seconds. I mean, why was it important to sort of have your debut at the Super Bowl so to speak.
Yeah, it's really just that big audience. I think it's also just you know, it's it's this cultural moment in sports. The Super Bowl has become so much you know, about the ads as much as the game, you know, depending who you talk to. And again, so this let us have that platform to reach the F one curius, to reach a new fan base for Cadillac Formula One, to say that we're coming and let's us kind of put
that American spin, this bold American team. I mean, what's more American than announcing your showing your first ever livery than at the Super Bowl.
Talk to us about the business of Formula One and really the business of racing. Because you've been involved in motorsports for a solid decade now with Game Ridge, with Andretti now a TWG, So how do you make money in this sport.
Well, you know, it starts with growing a fan base, which is really was job number one with the Super Bowl commercial, building up the fan base, and then you know, taking those metrics and reaching out to sponsors and building up that piece. And so it's a you know, you have a marketing machine. I mean really, when you think about today's modern F one, you know it's yeah, you've got the team, maybe you have a power unit company.
You need to have a media company inside your Formula one team as well, because you're marketing to the world, You're creating content, you're creating, you know, drawing in eyeball's interest, you're storytelling, You're doing all those things to create commercial value for the team. And that's essential in today's Formula one.
By the way, Checko and Botas are perfect for that. I mean absolutely, Terry is an amazing storyteller in his own right. What did you what was your strategy when you group these brands together? Because I see like an American heritage line here through Jim Bean and Tommy hillfigure for example.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I think as we think about what does it mean to be a you know, a American, we want to have these iconic American brands, these American originals that really create a you know, a foundational pillar in our in our sponsorship ecosystem. And I mean Tommy is fantastic, Jim Beam, you know, Cadillac. These are iconic American brands, and so we're you know, formula ones of global business.
So we're going to want to have non American brands on the car as well, but we definitely want to have those bona fide set up where we're anchored in these iconic American brands.
What do you make of the sort of Win on Sunday, Cell on Monday Mantra from the fifties and sixties. I mean, GM is getting in a big way back into racing, not just an F one. I went to Lamar with Mark Royce and crew and watched their hypercar there, which was amazing to see. But they also have you know, vehicles that nobody else can produce right now. They have a super Charge V eight with a stick and the CT five V Black Wing, So I'm really pumped about their offerings.
Yeah.
No, the product line is just as spectacular. It's actually actually after one of the F one bar to meetings, Cadillac They brought out every car in the lineup and we just spent the afternoon driving them. And so the product lineup is so strong, and so there's this upward mobility from a market share standpoint in Cadillac. It's the perfect time to bring Formula one in the Cadillac car brand together