Getting to know Cadillac's new sports car chief Keely Bosn

It came as a surprise to many in the FIA WEC and IMSA paddocks last year that General Motors was moving to rotate out Cadillac’s sports car boss Laura Wontrop Klauser at the end of the season, as part of a wider winter of change for the brand’s management structure in motorsport.

Wontrop Klauser, who held the position of GM sports car racing program manager from 2021, left big shoes to fill. She was a standout personality, who always made her vision for Cadillac in sports car racing clear and commanded the respect of her peers on both sides of the Atlantic. But in the corporate world, longevity and stability are sometimes sacrificed at the altar of efficiency. Moves like this are made suddenly to inject fresh energy, push things forward and hit targets.

It came on the eve of a huge season for GM in sports car racing, in which Cadillac’s presence in both the FIA WEC and IMSA SportsCar Championship has increased and is firmly in the spotlight. Three V-Series.Rs are contesting the full season in GTP for the first time with the addition of Wayne Taylor Racing alongside Action Express Racing, and in Hypercar, Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA has taken the reins and brought a new two-car effort to the world stage. It’s a big investment, made at a time when the brand is also pushing to prepare for its Formula 1 debut next year.

Pressure is on, then, to deliver results in both arenas that match its achievements from the 2023 IMSA season, in which it claimed a sterling clean sweep of GTP titles with Action Express and Chip Ganassi Racing.

Enter Keely Bosn, the new face of Cadillac’s sports car activities, who, with her understated demeanour, appears unfazed and confident upon stepping up to the plate. She brings a wide-ranging skillset to the role and firmly believes she’s the right person to steer the ship.

Bosn might be unfamiliar to many in the sport as she moves over from her previous role at GM within GM’s Competitor Intelligence, Technology and Mobility Planning organisation. But she does have a history in racing that, along with her stint as part of the U.S. Navy as a logistics officer, should serve her well going forward in her new position.

“My first experience was actually as an infant, growing up at a drag strip with my father, who was a drag racer in the late ‘80s,” she tells RACER during a sit-down in Qatar. “I then started racing when I was 12 and drove sprint cars for several years at a track called I-44 before I decided to move and go into automotive engineering.

“It was always what I wanted to do, get involved in the automotive industry and/or racing. I tried to make my way through General Motors, which I did, to try and get into Corvette Racing. I did an internship with Pratt & Miller, GM and Corvette Racing and worked on a thesis focused on the aerodynamic study of the ZR1, trying to convey that information over into lap time simulator programming.

“It was a great application of my background and my degree pursuit of mechanical engineering. The complicating factor was that I made a complete pivot to the Navy. And I did so because it was an exciting opportunity, and I wanted leadership experience.”

The reasoning behind her jump to the Navy is more of a “bar conversation”, she jokes, before pointing out that “you don’t join the military in the U.S., coming out of undergrad, typically, especially coming out of engineering. For me, it was the challenge aspect, to better myself and grow.”

And help her grow it did. Her seven years spent in the forces set her up nicely for a return to General Motors via further internships that eventually led to a full-time role in product planning at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

“I joke that I’ve had the most internships here than anyone else,” she quips. “When I was going through graduate school for my MBA and masters, I was trying to find roles in more of a sustainability realm instead of motorsport. That was my passion and the more I looked at GM I understood their direction with EVs. That appealed to me, it made me want to come back.”

The allure of the sporting side of General Motors’ business was also strong and tempted her to explore a route back at a time when Cadillac Racing was about to shake things up by splitting with Chip Ganassi Racing.

“I had been in touch several times with the motorsport side. I raised my hand and said I wanted to come back at some point,” she recalls. “I happened to be working behind the scenes on production that correlated with NASCAR. That gave me an entry, but at the time, moving to Charlotte, North Carolina, wasn’t in the cards for me.

“I talked more to Eric Warren (the executive director of GM Motorsports) but it wasn’t a good time, until last summer when on a whim I said I was ready for a career change, it felt like a time to make a rotation.”

The timing, she feels, is perfect as she joins at a time when the entire operation is making a fresh start. Sports car racing is also riding high, with manufacturers swarming to the top classes of the FIA WEC and IMSA in record numbers. That brings its own set of challenges, though; so much has changed since her internship with Corvette Racing, and the pressure to deliver results on the manufacturers invested has never been higher.

The off-season – or lack thereof – left her precious little time to prepare for the 2025 season, though she’s allowing herself just “a little bit of grace”. It’s all come at her thick and fast since the turn of the year, with visits to Daytona for the Rolex 24 Hours in January, then the Lusail International Circuit in Qatar for the FIA WEC season opener a month later.

Adding to the baptism of fire, neither race delivered a standout result. The highest-finishing V-Series.R on the high banks was fifth, and JOTA’s time in Lusail was derailed by friendly fire when both its cars collided at a restart while sitting first and second.

However, at this stage, Bosn’s most pressing matters revolve around relationship building and setting both the tone and culture. And in these areas, she sees early green shoots.

“The most challenging aspect right now is just knowing where to put my focus. Being at the races so early is really helpful for that,” she says. “In Daytona, the teams worked really well together. Behind the scenes, it went surprisingly smoothly. I think there’s just so much excitement around how new things are with three cars. Some unfortunate things occurred, but the teams were in the right mindset.”

On the WEC side, it’s tough to liken the atmosphere and experience, but again, she’s impressed with JOTA’s operation. “I feel like I’m comparing apples to oranges. Daytona has a lot of executives there and members of the public, so coming from that to the first WEC race is so different,” she points out.

“JOTA is also so strong, and there’s no conflict. In IMSA it is a little different because we have the two teams on the ground, so trying to spread the love is important. Enough attention needs to be paid across both, that’s a bit harder.

“But, overall, I think the assimilation of WTR and JOTA happened quickly. Off the bat, JOTA (which is entirely new, unlike WTR, which is returning to the brand) seems to feel at home. They bring the right mindset.

“Right now, we understand that the correlation of information, data and cross-talk is what’s going to make us stronger together. It starts from the top, comes down and the teams have been receptive to that.”

There will almost certainly be greater challenges to come down the road. Putting her stamp on the GM Motorsports organisation will be important, as will working alongside other manufacturer heads and the associated rule-makers. And this is where she believes her experience in the military will come into play.

While dealing with the likes of the ACO, FIA and IMSA is something she needs to get to grips with in the coming months, in a wider sense, she feels adept at creating processes and sticking to them in pursuit of a goal.

“I come from a background where it’s regimented, every T is crossed, every I is dotted,” she explains “Motorsport isn’t necessarily more relaxed than that, but there are some processes here that are not to the level I am used to. I just need to work out where to push, and where to not. I’ve been hyperfocused on understanding different personalities, rules, and regulations and working out what we can and can’t change.

“On a personality basis, I like to win,” she continues. “I like to do the absolute best. And it was no different in the military, it’s just that the stakes were different, it was life or death. For me, it’s a little more rewarding here to have the consistent feedback of race results, to gauge how a team is doing.”

So just what can we expect from the future of Cadillac Racing in sports cars with Bosn at the controls? With Formula 1 on the horizon for the brand, the factory efforts in the FIA WEC and IMSA will need to keep justifying their existence as we move to the end of the decade and the V-Series.R’s endgame approaches. She will no doubt have to fight their corner in boardroom meetings down the line.

Will Cadillac, for instance, continue to see value in funding globe-trotting programs in two FIA Championships once the F1 team comes on song? Will the budget required to race LMDh prototypes, which Bosn doesn’t feel has spiralled just yet, swell to a point where it’s unsustainable?

These are all questions that cannot be answered yet but will almost certainly form part of the narrative going forward. Right now, the focus is on the short to medium-term.

“We are always trying to build the roadmap over the next three to five years,” she says, “with a plan for a long-term vision. We have multi-year contracts with each of our teams and are in this for the long haul. Setting a three-year strategy is something we want to accomplish.”

“I think GM has made a strong commitment right now to the teams we are associated with. We chose winning teams and drivers. It shows the hunger. We are willing to sign new multi-year contracts with the teams and be integrated on a support basis. We are looking to understand the full roadmap, and how they intertwine. It’s something that’s actively being discussed going forward. It’s something we will work through as we go.

“It’ll have to be looked at constantly,” she adds. “But we are always looking at how to tie tech transfer from this to production. We want to strengthen production cars and bring that back full circle to customers. We want to sell cars and Cadillacs, so as we look to the future we need to paint the full picture, a full story of what it means to race and buy a Cadillac. I’m trying to double down on that.

“And I don’t think we need to treat everything the same. I do think that the WEC and IMSA are each their own series. It’s important to remember that and adjust. I think Le Mans is the top priority right now, whether it’s this year, next year or the following year. That’s the goal.”