American F2 Racer Jak Crawford In Play for Cadillac F1 Seat

• No American has ever won the Formula 2 championship or its designated predecessors.

• Current IndyCar driver Alexander Rossi’s runner-up place in 2015 is the best result for an American driver in the F2 series.

• The Cadillac F1 team is believed to be prioritizing experience, with veterans Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas the front-runners for the team's two seats.

Jak Crawford believes he and Cadillac’s new Formula 1 team “would be a good match” but is waiting on its plans for its 2026 direction to become clearer.

Cadillac will join the Formula 1 grid next year as an 11th team but has not yet signed either of its two race drivers.

Cadillac is understood to be prioritizing experience, with veterans Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas the front-runners for the team's two seats. The team, however, is in no hurry to lock down its lineup and has held discussions with several drivers.

In the event that a rookie is chosen for one of the seats then Crawford, the only realistic American candidate, would be among the drivers under consideration.

“Yeah, there have been talks, obviously there’s interest on both sides,” Crawford told Autoweek. “On my side, trying to get into Formula 1 and obviously being an American I think it would be a good match. So, definitely there’s talks ongoing there.

“From my side I feel it’s just [a case of] waiting and trying to do as good as I can in the Formula 2 car, there’s not much I can do to influence my place besides do that.”

Crawford added that he would also be open to a test/reserve driver role, given that each team is mandated to run a rookie in four practice sessions.

“Obviously the goal—the first goal—would be to be on the grid next year in Formula 1,” he said. “I feel like I’m ready enough that I’d do a good job in F1, so that’s not an issue, but of course the next best thing would be a third driver role with almost a guarantee of future development, or a seat in the future. That’d be the next best thing where I’d miss out on racing for a year but would be able to learn more and be more ready by the time I’d be able to jump in.

Crawford has an existing connection to Cadillac’s owners TWG Motorsports through his role as a development driver with the Andretti Formula E team, adding that his role in the all-electric series “was a big help as I was already introduced to a lot of people.” A continuation or expanded Formula E role is an option, Crawford said, but stressed that “F1 is definitely at the front of the list.”

Crawford, a 20-year-old racer from Charlotte, N.C.; currently holds a junior role with Aston Martin but the opportunity to progress within the team is limited given that team's commitment to Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.

Crawford has had extensive simulator time through 2025 at the team’s factory at Silverstone, and has also had private runs in its 2023-spec AMR23 at Zandvoort and Monza. Further runs are anticipated across the remainder of 2025, with Crawford hopeful of making his free practice debut.

“I’ve had some great experiences, continuing my learning of being in a Formula 1 car,” Crawford said. “You get to work with different engineers in a much more complex car, where there’s a lot of things you can change to make you go faster; an F1 car’s not only about driving fast, it’s being smart enough to know what you need to change, and you can change so much remotely, so you just learn a lot.”

His main focus, though, will be on the remaining quartet of events in this year’s Formula 2 championship.

Crawford has three wins and is second in the Formula 2 championship, 17 points behind Leonardo Fornaroli. Crawford goes into the summer recess following back-to-back podiums in Hungary.

No American has ever won the Formula 2 championship or its designated predecessors, with Alexander Rossi’s runner-up place in 2015 the best result.

“I think overall across all the rounds we’ve been really fast, especially in the races, I’m happy,” Crawford said. “I’ve got a bunch of wins, I feel like I could have had more, but many podiums, second in the championship, so I’m pretty happy.

“We work really hard as a team, with my engineers, to improve, especially the qualifying, which is very important. We’ve always been really strong in the races, but we’ve struggled in qualifying a bit more—so we need to qualify well; from then on it’s on me in the races to bring the car home, I feel like we’re always fast enough to fight for a podium on any day. I feel like any time we qualify well there’s no doubt the results will come.”