Why Race?

Without question, it is great entertainment. But does car racing—especially when it can cost hundreds of millions of dollars per year—provide a good ROI when it comes to selling cars at local dealersh

By Gary S. Vasilash

Some people argue that fast cars racing around race courses serve as “rolling billboards.” Which was probably a more effective thing before digital advertising.

In 2025, the spending on all outdoor advertising—of which billboards are a part—in the US was some $10 billion; it was some $137 billion online, which just goes to show that what was once tried-and-true or accepted wisdom can change with time.

Can you imagine a chief communications officer at a major company saying, “No, we don’t want to place ads on Google or Facebook. We’ve got a whole lot of billboards reserved for our messaging”?

But still, OEMs like to participate in motorsports because, as the line attributed to legendary Ford dealer Bob Tasca has it, “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.” He allegedly said it more than 50 years ago, long before social media was even a concept.

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The NASCAR Truck Series has been running since 1995.

Ford and Chevy have been in the series since its start. Toyota joined in 2004.

Through 2025 Toyota has won 14 Manufacturers’ Titles in the series.

Chevy has won 10 Manufacturers’ Titles.

Ford two.

If we consider that Chevy won 10 times over 30 years and Toyota won 14 times in 21 years, then this means Chevy’s win rate is 33.33% and Toyota’s 66.67%. In other words, Toyota’s win rate is higher than Chevy’s.

As for Ford, with a 6.67% Manufacturers’ Title win rate, Toyota is 900% higher. The delta between those two is incredible.

But when it comes to selling F-150s and Silverados, those two companies trounce the Toyota Tundra.

In 2025 Chevy sold 362,909 light duty Silverados.

Ford doesn’t break out its light-duty and heavy-duty F-Series numbers, so let’s assume that the F-150 accounts for 60% of the total F-Series sales (which is the percentage of light duty Silverados compared to the total number of trucks). So that would be 497,293 F-150s.

Toyota Tundra sales in 2025? 147,610.

That’s about 41% of the Silverado sales and just 30% of the F-150 sales.

Yet Toyota is crushing it in the NASCAR Truck Series.

So wouldn’t that dominance lead one to believe that Tundra sales would be a whole lot higher?

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In the 2025 NASCAR Cup Series, Chevy took the Manufacturers’ title. Its cars had 15 wins. It scored 1,310 points.

Toyota was in second place, with 14 wins and 1,281 points.

Ford came in third, with 7 wins and 1,210 points.

In 2025, Chevy’s vehicle was the “ZR1,” previously known as the “Camaro ZR1.”

Toyota ran the Camry XSE.

And Ford campaigned the Mustang Dark Horse.

Even though Chevy won on a lot of Sundays in 2025, customers couldn’t buy a Camaro in a Chevy dealership the next day because the car went out of production in December 2023. In fact, in 2025 NASCAR fans going to buy a car in a Chevy dealership had two choices: the Malibu, which went out of production in November 2024 but there were 10,026 of them sold in 2025, or a Corvette (which had a base MSRP of $63,300, so you’d really need to be a fan).

If there was that Win-Sell equation, then the Camaro should still be in market.

Now fans can still buy a Mustang. In 2025 there were 45,333 sold. Odds are NASCAR fans were a small percentage.

And you certainly could get a Camry, as 316,185 did in 2025.

I wonder how many people went in to a Toyota dealership thinking to themselves “Denny Hamlin finished the season in a Camry second to Kyle Larson in a Chevy by only 3 points—5,034 to 5,031—so I need to buy a Camry!” compared to those who were thinking, “I’ve heard that Camrys have outstanding quality, durability and reliability, and as I need a car to reliably get to work each day, I need to buy a Camry!”?

Product matters more than promotion.

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Years ago, Frank DiPietro, who was the head of what was then GM Production Engineering (the organization responsible for all the manufacturing systems, tooling and equipment throughout the company), would tell me in a tone of voice that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, “The first rule in the auto industry is: Always make money.” He made Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden line—“The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club”—sound like a suggestion made by Mr. Rogers.

Now while OEMs make money by doing such things as offering financial services and selling spare parts, both of which have good margins, let’s face it: selling vehicles is fundamental to following DiPietro’s rule. Assuming they do it right.

One of Cadillac’s key competitors in the US as well as in other markets around the globe is Lexus. Cadillac was launched in 1902. Lexus in 1989.

Both marques compete in sports car racing series: IMSA and WEC. Both entered at approximately the same time. They both started in IMSA in 2017. Cadillac officially entered the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2023; Lexus in 2024.

“Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.”

“Always make money.”

In IMSA Cadillac has racked up 33 wins to Lexus’s 17.

In WEC Cadillac has won one and Lexus two.

So how’s this working out in the dealerships? Here are annual sales during the years in question:

2017 Cadillac: 156,440 Lexus: 305,132

2018 Cadillac: 154,702 Lexus: 298,310

2019 Cadillac: 156,246 Lexus: 298,310

2020 Cadillac: 129,495 Lexus: 275,041

2021 Cadillac: 118,309 Lexus: 304,475

2022 Cadillac: 141,720 Lexus: 258,704

2023 Cadillac: 105,439 Lexus: 320,439

2024 Cadillac: 160,204 Lexus: 345,669

2025 Cadillac: 173,515 Lexus: 370,260

Seems evident that racing victories have less to do with sales than winning product, and if you’re not selling, you’re not making as much money.

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Cadillac is now part of Formula One racing.

To get in, it had to pay the organizer a reported one-time $450 million anti-dilution fee, which is to be distributed to the 10 existing teams (i.e., they used to divide the purse among the 10 of them, so that percentage is reduced with 11, so Cadillac had to kick in some additional funds to participate). Then it is going to cost the company several hundred million more to get things up and running.

The general ballpark figure is about $1 billion for the first year. Then less. But still a lot.

When the announcement of Cadillac’s entry into F1 was made last March GM president Mark Reuss said, “The excitement only grows as we get closer to showcasing GM’s engineering expertise on the prestigious global stage of F1.”

The “car” is designed and engineered by Cadillac.

The engine being used in the car for the first three seasons (2026, 2027, 2028) will be sourced from Ferrari.

Ferrari has been racing in F1 since the get-go in 1950. It has a record 16 Constructors’ Championships (McLaren is second at 10). It has a record 15 Drivers’ Championships (McLaren is second at 12).

So when a Cadillac F1 race car wins a race during the first three seasons, how much credit does Ferrari get for its propulsion system engineering and how much does Cadillac get for its engineering?

Will people go to Cadillac dealers and say they want an Escalade with a Ferrari engine?

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In addition to the advertising aspect of F1 racing, one benefit to the vehicle manufacturers’ personnel is often cited: the whole crucible of getting a car ready from week-to-week* helps put engineers at their pinnacles, skills they can bring back to HQ after their assignment is done.

Arguably there is nothing like motor racing to get that experience.

But (1) it isn’t cheap to achieve this and (2) given that the auto industry is known for operating at less-than racing speed when it comes to product development, one has to wonder how much of that racing experience really matters.

And while on the subject of speed, when the 21^st edition of the AlixPartners Global Automotive Outlook was released, Mark Wakefield, the company’s global co-leader of the automotive and industrial practice at AlixPartners said: “China is the industry’s new disruptor – capable of creating must-have vehicles that are faster to market, cheaper to buy, advanced on tech and design, and more efficient to build. For traditional OEMs, keeping pace with China’s strongest brands will require more than a course correction.”

Somehow the Chinese have been able to develop vehicles in half the time as the traditionals that without F1 experience.

Isn’t the whole point of a vehicle manufacturer to develop, produce and sell vehicles that people want to buy faster and better than its competitors?

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But then there is the other argument, about advanced technology.

Regardless of what you might think of its CEO and Technoking, Tesla has clearly been leading in technology since the introduction of the Model S in 2012.

Every traditional OEM has been chasing Tesla since.

How much racing does Tesla participate in?

None.

It also has zero third-party franchise dealerships, so perhaps that “Win on Sunday. . .” simply doesn’t apply.

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And there’s this:

In 2026 the Formula One cost cap for spending on the vehicle development and production is $215 million. That doesn’t include the engine, which has a cap of an additional $130 million. And it also doesn’t cost things like driver salaries and marketing.

But let’s stick with the $215 million.

According to collegefactual.com, “The median early career salary of EE students who receive their doctor’s degree from Stanford is $139,100 per year.”

Ph.D. Electrical engineering. Stanford.

Probably pretty good.

Let’s say that GM hires one of those grads for that figure. Adding in things like benefits that can account for as much as $55,640, this means a total cost to GM of $194,740 per year.

How many of those grads could it get for $215 million per year?

1,104 Stanford PhDs. (Of course, there aren’t that many graduated.)

While this would mean, of course, that they likely wouldn’t get to visit places like Monaco in June, but isn’t it likely that they would provide more to what people find in dealerships than an F1 team?

And let’s say they opt for a PhD in computer/electrical engineering from Purdue. The high end for their starting salary is $103,000. So that would mean a total annual cost of $144,200 to GM for that person.

If that $215 million was spent on them, then there would be 1,490 very smart people added to GM’s employment count.

Of course, they are unlikely to attract A-list celebrities.

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Which brings me back to Wakefield’s “For traditional OEMs, keeping pace with China’s strongest brands will require more than a course correction.”

Isn’t starting a motor sports team a traditional approach to the market?

Maybe a company will sell a lot of hats, jackets and other swag, but how many vehicles is Cadillac going to move in markets where F1 is exceedingly popular**?

Enough to make money?

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*There are 24 races in the 2026 F1 season, which spans from March 8 in Australia and ends December 6 in Abu Dhabi—but there are some gaps, not literally week-to-week, as NASCAR is, running from the February 15 Daytona 500 to the final race on November 8 at Homestead-Miami, with the exceptions of Easter Sunday and a day off on August 2, 36 races in all.

**Europe is second only to China in F1 popularity. Cadillac sold an estimated 100,000 vehicles in China in 2025. In the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) figures for 2025 in the EU, EFTA (Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland), and the UK, there are market share figures for OEMs ranging from Volkswagen Group (26.9%) to Mitsubishi (0.4%). No GM brand. So if Cadillac sells more than Mitsubishi’s 46,655 vehicles in 2026, will that mean a well-placed investment in F1? And if it sells fewer?