Getting up to speed on F1’s newest team
Zafir Nagji, Sports Editor |
Since 2018, Formula One has been a 10-team competition. However, after a lengthy, costly application process, the sport will return to an 11-team grid as one of the biggest automotive conglomerates gets set to join the sport in 2026. Welcome, Cadillac and General Motors, to the pinnacle of motorsport.
How did they get here?
General Motors first made its intentions of joining F1 known in 2023, teaming up with Andretti Global to enter the Cadillac brand into the sport. Originally approved by the FIA but vetoed by the Formula One Group, the alliance fought as hard as it could to gain support. Cadillac even agreed to become an F1 engine supplier and pay a hefty anti-dilution fee of $450 million USD in addition to the billions of dollars already being spent on building the team’s infrastructure and racing cars for the 2026 season.
In March 2025, Cadillac finally received approval, just in time to sign the new Formula One Concord Agreement. The team announced it would use Ferrari engines, similar to the sport’s other American outfit, Haas, until it can manufacture its own engines in 2029.
Laying the groundwork
In preparation for their arrival in the sport, Cadillac hired Graeme Lowdon, who had worked with Virgin and Marussia’s F1 teams in the past, to be the team principal. Several alumni of Team Enstone, which has won seven World Championships in F1 under various names, also made their way into Cadillac’s employment, including CTO Pat Symonds, operations officer Rob White, technical director Nick Chester, aerodynamicist Jon Tomlinson, and advisor Naoki Tokunaga. Overall, the team has hired approximately 400 staff members, two-thirds of their total goal of 600 employees by their 2026 debut. Their construction personnel stack up with the best in the sport already, ensuring that their development moves forward smoothly and with plenty of progress.
With GM backing them, Cadillac already has a series of high-grade manufacturing and development facilities across the globe. The majority of the team’s car manufacturing will come from its brand-new headquarters in Fishers, Indiana, while the race team and chassis designers will operate from a facility in Silverstone, England. GM is also building a 204,000 square-foot power unit facility in Concord, North Carolina, while additional operations will be handled in Warren, Michigan. Finally, the team reached an agreement to rent Toyota’s wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany.
Filling out the roster
No matter how good its engineering is, an F1 team can only go as far as its drivers take it, making hiring a pair of wheelmen the most important part of Cadillac’s plan. Initially, they had two distinct potential courses of action.
On one hand, Cadillac could put a pair of young drivers in their cars, banking on their ability to develop and turn into long-term drivers while being expendable enough to fire once the team is off the ground. However, as teams like Williams and Haas have found out in recent years, hiring young drivers can be a gamble, and if the driver in question crashes too often, it compromises the quality of data a team is able to use to develop the car.
Cadillac instead chose the other course of action—hire a pair of savvy veteran drivers who may not be known for their ability to consistently win races, but rather drive cleanly and obtain plenty of data for the team to use. In August 2025, the team announced it would be hiring former Mercedes-AMG driver and race-winner Valtteri Bottas, as well as former Red Bull Racing driver and race-winner Sergio Pérez, for their inaugural season.
Initially seen as a high-potential young driver in his early days at Williams, Bottas established himself as a legendarily stable driver with Mercedes-AMG. The Finn was the ideal second racer next to Lewis Hamilton, driving defensively to keep his British teammate in advantageous positions while collecting 10 race wins of his own. Bottas was then replaced by the younger George Russell, consigning him to drive with the much lower-ranked Sauber team. He still maximized himself while on the team, though, scoring 59 points in three seasons before being reassigned to reserve driver as Sauber began its transition process to Audi. Bottas did simulator and in-car testing for all Mercedes-affiliated teams, including Mercedes-AMG, Williams, McLaren and Aston Martin, which has kept him fresh and ready for his new digs at Cadillac.
“It’s a really exciting, interesting project for me,” Bottas said on the F1 Nation podcast. “I know there’s a lot of work to do, but I think it’s really exciting starting something new and being part of it.”
Driving alongside Bottas is Pérez, who was controversially released by his former team, Red Bull Racing. After impressing the paddock with his incredible drives at BWT Racing Point, including a win at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, he joined the energy drink empire in 2021, replacing Alex Albon. In the Austrian team’s cars, the Mexican driver amassed eight pole positions, 29 podium finishes and five race wins, helping Max Verstappen secure four Driver’s Championships before being fired in 2024. Now, all Pérez is hoping for is to rediscover his love for Formula One.
“The last year especially was very hard. It was very demanding and I didn’t enjoy it,” Perez said on The F1 Show. “I love the sport and I want to go back to enjoy it. This is the main driving factor behind coming back is to just enjoy it and give back a lot of love to the sport that has given me everything.”
Realistic projections
Hiring a space-age engineering crew and employing two of the sport’s most stable drivers makes Cadillac look like a world-stopping racing outfit, but teams rarely ever succeed in their first few years of the sport. For example, Haas joined F1 in 2016 and has yet to win a race or finish better than fifth in the Constructors’ Championship.
However, Cadillac doesn’t need to be a great team right away,nor should it be. F1 distributes prize money and allocates research-and-development time based on where teams finish in the Constructors’ Championship. High-finishing teams are granted the most money and the least development time, while low-finishing teams are granted the least money but the most development time.
