Formula 1's Eleventh Team
Expanding the grid is not something Formula 1 does lightly. New teams must clear significant commercial, technical and sporting hurdles before being admitted, and the sport had held steady at ten teams for years. Cadillac's entry breaks that, taking the grid to eleven teams and twenty-two cars — a meaningful change to the competitive landscape and to the look of every starting grid.
The timing is striking. Arriving in the same season as the 2026 regulations reset means the new team starts from the same clean sheet as everyone else on the new rules, even if it lacks the institutional experience of established constructors. That is both an opportunity and a challenge: there is no entrenched advantage to overcome, but there is also no accumulated know-how to lean on.
General Motors Enters Formula 1
The project carries serious industrial weight. General Motors — one of the largest car manufacturers in the world — stands behind the Cadillac entry, signalling a long-term commitment rather than a short-term marketing exercise. For a sport actively courting major manufacturers with its new, more sustainable and more electrified power unit rules, landing a company of GM's scale is a significant statement.
Building a competitive Formula 1 operation is an enormous undertaking that spans engine and chassis development, aerodynamics, manufacturing, logistics and race operations. A new entrant typically begins by leaning on established suppliers and partners while it builds its own capability over time — a pragmatic path that lets the team go racing while longer-term programmes mature behind the scenes.
An Experienced Driver Line-Up
New teams face a choice between unproven young talent and seasoned campaigners, and Cadillac leaned toward experience for its debut. Sergio Pérez — a multiple Grand Prix winner with years at the front of the grid — anchors the line-up, bringing exactly the kind of race-hardened feedback and tyre-management craft that a young team needs while it learns to extract the most from its package.
Pairing established, race-winning experience with a brand-new operation is a sensible strategy. Veteran drivers can isolate car problems from driver limitations, deliver consistent reference data for the engineers, and bank points whenever the car gives them a chance — all of which accelerates a new team's development far more reliably than raw speed alone. You can explore Pérez's career and the teams he has driven for across our driver pages.
The Long Road to the Front
History suggests patience is essential for any new Formula 1 team. Even well-funded entrants rarely fight at the front in their first seasons; the gap between arriving on the grid and genuinely competing for podiums is usually measured in years, not months. The realistic early goals are reliability, steady operational improvement, and occasional points when circumstances allow — the foundations on which a serious challenge is later built.
What makes Cadillac's arrival compelling is the scale of the ambition behind it and the unusual context of debuting into a clean-sheet rules era. The fairest way to judge the project is not by where it qualifies in its opening races, but by its trajectory across the season and beyond. Follow the 2026 results and standings to watch how Formula 1's newest team finds its feet on the grid.