Branding New Cadillac

General Motors has been awarded a formula one team. Michael Andretti had been campaigning for an American F1 team, but now he's stepped aside and the team will be more GM than Andretti. And it's going to be called the Cadillac team, as part of GM's eternal effort to associate the brand with something other than your rich uncle Wally's land yacht.

I'm wondering if anyone is taking bets on how long this team will last — or at least, how long it will have the Cadillac name. I'm thinking the over-under should be about 5 years. In recent history, there have been several examples of companies slapping their name on an F1 team, then changing their mind a few years later. Toyota lasted eight seasons, and Honda only three, and I don't see GM being more patient than them. It won't take long for the suits to ask why they're spending tens of millions to finish fourteenth.

The fact is that Formula One isn't a real great investment. It's not just expensive, but it's also hard to get to the top even if you're willing to spend with the big boys: You also need people with specific skills that aren't always available. Worse, there isn't much of a consolation prize: If you don't make it to the top, the whole world hears your name applied to the irrelevant car getting lapped by the champion.

So Formula One is a weird kind of never-ending investment bubble, where new people buy a team expecting great things, then realize there's not much reward in glory or publicity, and give up. But somehow, there's always more investors ready to take any team off the owner's hands and begin the cycle again.

Having said all this, Formula One has been more competitive this season, with four different teams winning races, so maybe this was the best time to buy into the series. But having said that, the other six teams had a combined total of two podiums in the 24 races, so there's still a big gap between haves and have-nots, even if there are more haves than there used to be. That will be the big challenge: those years in the wilderness without success before any chance at a publicity payoff.