Why the Cadillac F1 team is unveiling its race-car livery in a Super Bowl ad

Crossover Formula 1 and NFL fans, fasten your seatbelts.

The Cadillac F1 team, which is set to make its debut on the grid when the 2026 F1 season gets up and running in Australia in March, is releasing its car livery this weekend on marketing’s biggest stage: the Super Bowl.

Standing up a brand-new F1 team is expensive, and so is a Super Bowl ad, but for Cadillac, which is already working to be known as the American team in the paddock, the team never really considered another option for the livery reveal, Cadillac F1 CMO Ahmed Iqbal told Marketing Brew.

“As we were positioning ourselves as America’s new home team, how and where do we actually start this story?” Iqbal said. “No better place to do it than the pinnacle moment of sports media entertainment in American culture, which is the Super Bowl. That really was the main focus—to find the right platform to do the story and to really plant our flag as America’s new team.”

In addition to being a uniquely American moment, the Super Bowl also provides Cadillac with the reach the team is looking for as it works to introduce itself to a wide range of potential fans, from F1 diehards to newcomers.

One giant leap

While the full Super Bowl spot won’t be released until it airs during the fourth quarter of the game, Iqbal said, Cadillac did, in typical Big Game advertiser fashion, drop a teaser this week, which features a voiceover from President John F. Kennedy’s 1962 “We choose to go to the moon” speech.

Unlike many of the other ads that will air on Super Bowl Sunday, Cadillac’s 30-second spot doesn’t include any celebrity cameos, according to Mina Mikhael, ECD at Translation, the creative agency behind the campaign. Instead, it relies on shots of the car and the story of Cadillac’s F1 entrance in an effort to appeal to the wide range of fans watching the game, he said.

“If you’re already an F1 casual or hard-core [fan,] you’ve already made up your mind [about your team], but you are curious, and then on the other side, the rest of the Super Bowl audience is not our normal target,” Mikhael said. “We found a story and we found an insight that is relatable…and I think this is going to be something that any casual person watching this can have an opinion on.”

In an effort to balance appealing to F1 newbies without alienating longtime fans, the creative team embraced the idea of “plot twists,” Mikhael said, but it steered away from creative concepts that “felt like they were intentionally spoofing F1 or trying to disrupt the sport itself,” Translation ECD Steve Horn added.

When the 30-second version runs during the game, Cadillac plans to release a 60-second cut of the ad online, Mikhael told us. The 30-second spot will focus largely on the livery, while the 60-second version will provide additional context about the team and its recent history since getting official approval to join the grid last year.

Lights out and away we go

Leading up to its Big Game reveal, Cadillac has a big experiential activation planned. In Times Square, a big shiny box with a frosted glass exterior will slowly defrost, eventually displaying a replica of the Cadillac F1 team car and its new livery. The display is being installed on Friday, will defrost by the end of the Super Bowl, and will stay up through Monday.

“New York City, first of all, is home of all countdowns,” Iqbal said. “There’s no race in New York City…so we’re putting the car in a place that is essentially the global crossroads of the world.”

Bringing the livery reveal to NYC is Cadillac’s way of matching the magnitude of a Super Bowl moment with an IRL experience, Iqbal said. Creating a physical experience that leans on branded imagery, like the team’s signature chrome coloring, is designed to amp up hype and mystery in a manner that he said represents the team and its identity. Plus, Mikhael added, it’s just “freaking cool.”

Cadillac will measure the success of the campaign in what Iqbal calls the “standard format,” focusing on piquing the interest of as many potential fans as possible. The team is aiming to brand Cadillac and the sport as simultaneously accessible and aspirational, a goal he said is easier in the digital age.

“The F1 audience is so online, [both] the core fans and casual fans,” Mikhael said. “All of our posts, everything’s about ‘just follow us, be a part of this team’…you get to be part of us building up. We want you to be one of our first five, 10 million followers.”

Beyond the Big Game, the Cadillac team is focused on preseason testing at the Bahrain circuit next week before preparing for the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne in early March, events that can spur behind-the-scenes looks and moments for social. Further out, it’ll be all about the races right here in the US that Cadillac can really lay claim to: Miami, Austin, and Las Vegas.

“We’re also working on something really special for our first home race, which will be in Miami,” Iqbal said. “As we prepare for the rest of the season, you’ll see some really specific moments from us really trying to own the F1 experience in our home base.”