For many years Formula 1 tried and failed to connect with the US audience, but all that has changed in the last decade. Burgeoning interest is now served by three grands prix on US soil and an American team on the grid – with another one about to join.
Cadillac is also the first mainstream US car manufacturer to field a team in F1. Although the Indianapolis 500 was included on the world championship calendar in the 1950s as a hands-across-the-ocean exercise, very few competitors made the crossing either way.
For that reason we haven’t included Indy 500 entrants in our run-down of American F1 teams, but it would be remiss of us to exclude those who flew the flag despite not being based in the US…
Scarab (1960)
After the Indianapolis 500 was dropped from the F1 calendar, the first American team to make a determined effort to contest the top category was Scarab-Reventlow Automobiles, founded by Lance Reventlow. A car enthusiast and adventurer, Reventlow had considerable resources at hand: he was the only son of socialite and Woolworths heiress Barbara Hutton. Cary Grant was just one of his several stepfathers, James Dean a friend and fellow competitor in amateur races.
Reventlow established his racing team at the age of 22 in Venice, California, and immediately found success in the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) championship, which engineer-driver Chuck Daigh won in a Chevrolet-powered Scarab in 1958. The following season Reventlow set his sights on F1, setting up a secondary base in Britain for logistical reasons.
The F1 car was ready by 1960 and was a handsome machine – but already outdated, since the engine was in the front (and underpowered, even if it made the claimed 230bhp). Neither Reventlow nor Daigh managed to qualify for the Monaco Grand Prix despite a helping hand from regular championship contender Stirling Moss, who drove the car during practice to give guidance on set-up.
At the Dutch Grand Prix, Daigh qualified 16th and Reventlow 20th, but the organizers were only prepared to offer ‘starting money’ to the top 15. Reventlow angrily withdrew his cars, describing the policy as “phooey”.
In France, Scarab suffered engine problems and ran out of spares so withdrew again. Ultimately the team only participated in two grand prix events that season, in Belgium and the United States. In Spa, both drivers failed to finish due to engine failures, and at the home race, only Chuck Daigh crossed the finish line in 10th place.
Despite building a rear-engined prototype, Reventlow’s enthusiasm for motor racing was on the wane and he did not return to F1, closing the team in 1962 and renting the workshop to Carroll Shelby.
All-American Racers (1966-1969)
American racing legend Dan Gurney was among that rare breed of drivers who also had an instinctive grasp of engineering. After four years competing in F1, during which he secured Porsche’s first (and only) win, Gurney joined the newly founded team of three-time world champion Jack Brabham in 1963.
There he delivered that marque’s first victory, too. In 1966, inspired by Brabham’s example, he decided to found his own F1 team.
He established the team All-American Racers in Santa Ana, California, with a satellite facility based in the UK known as Anglo-American Racers. The cars bore the suitably patriotic name of ‘Eagle’.
Despite reliability issues and the late arrival of the British-built Weslake V12 engine, Gurney and the Len Terry-designed Eagle Mk1 made an impact in 1966: the Imperial blue car was elegantly designed, possibly the best-looking of its generation. The following season Gurney won a dramatic Belgian Grand Prix, breaking the lap record as he fought back from a long pitstop to catch Jackie Stewart’s ailing BRM.
Excluding the statistically anomalous Indy 500s of the 1950s, this was the first F1 win for a US constructor – but it would be the only one for Gurney’s marque. Lacking the budget to develop the car and maintain the intricate Weslake engines, Gurney finished the 1968 season with a customer Brabham and McLaren and withdrew AAR from F1 to focus on US-based racing.
From the late 1960s to the late 1980s, Eagle cars competed in USAC and CART, winning around 50 races, including the Indianapolis 500 in 1968 and 1973.
Shadow (1973 - 1980)
With a logo redolent of a spy movie or a private detective agency, Shadow began its motorsport journey in Can-Am in the late 1960s. The team was founded by Don Nichols, an American entrepreneur and World War II veteran whose background also involved classified intelligence work – hence the choice of the team's name and logo.
Shadow’s time in Can-Am, the US sportscar championship with the famously open rulebook, was one of ups and downs. While the first cars were quick but unreliable, in 1972 George Follmer ran away with the championship, beating McLaren’s Denny Hulme.
Attracting sponsorship from Universal Oil Products, Shadow entered Formula 1 in 1973 with a car designed in the UK by Tony Southgate, the engineer behind the BRM in which Jean-Pierre Beltoise won the Monaco Grand Prix the previous season. The American team’s first F1 campaign mirrored its Can-Am experience: it was inconsistent. Follmer finished third in Shadow's second Grand Prix, while his team-mate, Jackie Oliver, also reached the podium in Canada later that season.
In between there were frequent reliability issues and retirements. 1974 and 1975 followed a similar pattern: Jean-Pierre Jarier secured pole position in the opening race of 1975 but retired. Fast Welshman Tom Pryce won a non-championship race and finished on the podium in Austria, but elsewhere the results were thin.
From 1976 Shadow raced under a British license, becoming the first team in Formula 1 history to swap nationalities. As a result, its only championship victory, at the 1977 Austrian Grand Prix, was achieved under the British flag, meaning it is not counted among American F1 race-winning teams.
1977 was a tumultuous year for Shadow, which lost its UOP sponsorship. Oliver had stepped back from driving and became the team’s sponsor wrangler but money became tight, Pryce was killed in a tragic accident in South Africa, and several key personnel – including Oliver and Southgate – left at the end of the season to form the Arrows team.
Points became increasingly rare during the ground-effect era and, in 1980, Nichols ultimately decided to end Shadow’s F1 adventure.
Penske (1974 - 1976)
Roger Penske requires no introduction: his teams have competed and won across many disciplines including NASCAR, endurance racing, IndyCar, and Formula E, and has claimed victory in legendary races such as the Daytona 500, the 24 Hours of Daytona, and multiple Indianapolis 500 events.
Penske also dipped his toes into F1, though not quite with the same degree of success.
Can-Am was initially Penske’s battlefield of choice, where a customer relationship with McLaren led to Penske entering two grands prix in 1971 with a rented McLaren M19A in Sunoco colors. The legendary Mark Donohue finished on the podium first time out, in the Canadian Grand Prix at Mosport (the same car fetched €837,500 at auction last year).
After more success in Can-Am with Porsche, Penske entered Formula 1 as a constructor in 1975, albeit in a low-key way with a car designed and built in the UK. Rather than basing his enterprise in Britain’s ‘motorsport valley’ – the counties around London, within reach of Silverstone – Penske moved into the workshops formerly occupied by New Zealand racer Graham McRae near Poole, Dorset.
Penske was highly motivated but the PC1 car failed to deliver. It was less competitive than expected, and the team had to finish the season using a March 751. During practice for the Austrian Grand Prix, tragedy struck: Donohue suffered a tire failure and crashed, succumbing to his injuries the following day.
Despite this affliction, the 1976 season began with hope. The team’s new recruit, John Watson, secured two podium finishes with the PC4, in France and Great Britain. In Austria, exactly one year to the day after Donohue’s death, Watson achieved Penske’s first – and only – F1 victory.
At the end of the season the team lost its main sponsor, prompting Roger Penske to end the Formula 1 project. He sold the team's cars to ATS, which managed to score just one point in the 1979 season before withdrawing completely.
Vel’s Parnelli Jones (1974-1976)
1963 Indy 500 winner Rufus Parnell ‘Parnelli’ Jones was a versatile and successful racing driver, the first to break the 150mph mark at Indy, and for a period so famous that traffic cops would often upbraid speeding drivers thus: “Who do you think you are? Parnelli Jones?”
He even titled his autobiography As A Matter Of Fact I Am Parnelli Jones.
In 1968 Jones got together with his old team boss, Velko Miletich, to establish Vel’s Parnelli Jones racing in Torrance, California. Initially focusing on USAC racing and the Indy 500, winning the championship three times and the 500 twice, VPJ widened its remit to include Formula1 in 1974 with the VPJ4 car designed by Maurice Philippe, architect of the Lotus 72.
Mario Andretti finished seventh in the car’s first race, in Canada, then thrilled the home crowd at Watkins Glen by qualifying third (he had briefly been fastest before a brake failure put him in the barrier). Sadly Mario was then disqualified for a push start.
Philippe left but the team’s new recruit, a young John Barnard, modified the VPJ4 ahead of the 1975 season and Mario claimed two points finishes. Unfortunately Firestone then withdrew from F1 and Jones struggled to find a US sponsor willing to get involved in a predominantly European championship.
The team then skipped the first round of the 1976 season in Brazil; come round three, Andretti was informed that VPJ was quitting F1 – not by Jones but by National Speed Sport News editor Chris Economaki, while Mario was sitting on the grid in Long Beach.
Beatrice Haas (1985-1986)
Carl Haas made his money importing race cars and their components, and spent quite a lot of it on racing. Like many individuals in his position, there came a time when he realized that his talents lay not behind the wheel. As a team owner and entrant he was already successful across many disciplines when he teamed up with actor Paul Newman to found a CART team in 1983, winning the title with Mario Andretti the following season.
Haas also had designs on F1 and hoped to persuade Andretti to front it, but Mario demurred suggesting his son Michael should drive; arguably this is where the project started to run aground. Michael couldn’t get the necessary licence.
Still, Haas made it to the grid in 1985 with sponsorship from the Beatrice Foods empire, albeit at the tail end of the season. The presence of the Lola name on the paperwork was merely a nod to Haas being Lola’s US distributor: in fact the THL1 car was built by FORCE – a new company set up by former McLaren boss Teddy Mayer – and designed by former Williams engineer Neil Oatley. Among the contributing factors to the car’s late arrival was a delay in Ford’s development of a new turbo alternative to its naturally aspirated V8, leaving Haas to either wait or use Hart engines.
1980 world champion Alan Jones was lured out of retirement to drive the car but it wasn’t very competitive. Oatley had a new design in the works for 1986, and Jones was joined by Patrick Tambay, but the money and energy ran out when a regime change at Beatrice cut the team’s funding.
In the absence of another backer for 1987 – US companies still didn’t see much value in F1 – Haas shut up shop with just three points finishes to its credit. Oatley went on to McLaren and, many world championships later, is still there as a senior consultant.
Haas F1 Team (2016 - present)
American machine tooling magnate Gene Haas made his racing name in NASCAR with his team Stewart-Haas Racing – a joint venture with multiple champion Tony Stewart – before taking on the challenge of Formula 1. Headquartered in Kannapolis, North Carolina, but with race operations based in the UK and design partially outsourced to Dallara in Italy, the outfit was a cleverly constructed international operation which took advantage of the FIA’s ‘listed parts’ scheme to cut costs.
Haas F1 made its debut in 2016 with a car using as many Ferrari components as legally possible, prompting other competitors to complain and the ‘listed parts’ concept to be gradually tightened up.
The team's early years were promising, as it finished eighth in the constructors' championship with 29 points in its debut season. After a mixed 2017 campaign, the 2018 season was much more convincing. Kevin Magnussen achieved 11 top-10 finishes, including two fifth-place results. His team-mate, Frenchman Romain Grosjean, also scored points seven times, once finishing just shy of the podium in Austria. Haas concluded the season in fifth place in the constructors' standings, marking its best result to date.
In 2019 performance abruptly went south as the team began a long struggle with aerodynamic issues, and finances were not helped by a title sponsor which defaulted on its obligations. In 2023, following yet another challenging season, Gene Haas decided to part ways with Guenther Steiner, the charismatic team principal who had led the squad since 2016.
Steiner was replaced by Ayao Komatsu, who immediately undertook a complete restructuring of the team. Thanks to new investments from Gene Haas and a fresh partnership with Toyota, Haas is on an improvement trajectory and finished seventh last season.
Cadillac F1 (2026 - …)
In 2026, Cadillac will have the potential advantage of entering the sport during a regulatory change, giving it the entire 2025 season to study the new technical and aerodynamic regulations and develop its car accordingly. This is a luxury that not all currently competing teams will be able to afford, since some will have a lot at stake during this final season under the current rules.
So, will Cadillac outperform Haas and become the first American team of the 21st century to secure a podium – or even win a race?
