Everything you need to know about General Motors’ Cadillac F1 Team from engine to drivers

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General Motors brought its Cadillac brand to the Formula 1 grid in 2026, so here is everything that you need to know about the American team forging a new path.

F1 confirmed on November 25, 2024 that it had agreed to a deal with General Motors to see the American automotive giant create a new Formula 1 team, which it committed to naming its luxury Cadillac brand. F1 later formally granted GM’s entry for Cadillac on March 7, 2025.

General Motors persisted in talks with Formula 1 after Liberty Media rejected an application to join the grid from Andretti in January 2024. GM had agreed to partner with Andretti as an engine supplier but Formula 1 claimed that Andretti “would not on its own add value” to F1.

General Motors debuted its Cadillac brand in F1 in 2026

Formula 1 ultimately agreed that General Motors bringing the Cadillac name to the grid was worthwhile after GM made clear its commitment to the project with numerous operational milestones achieved. GM remaining committed to building a works engine was also needed.

The U-turn follows General Motors and US group TWG Global joining forces to take over the remains of the failed Andretti bid. But while the group is not Andretti by name, TWG Global owns and operates the team. It mainly marked Michael Andretti’s removal from the project.

General Motors also paid an anti-dilution fee for its Cadillac brand to join Formula 1, as it is a stipulation in F1’s existing rules. It is also reported that GM had to pay an inflated sum well above the $200m (£159m) clause in F1’s rules, with a fee of around $450m (£358m) touted.

Any team attempting to enter Formula 1 must pay an anti-dilution fee to compensate the 10 existing squads’ reduced earnings with the grid expanding to 11 outfits. The anti-dilution fee is also likely to increase in 2026 as contracts between the teams, F1 and the FIA end in 2025.

With that in mind, F1 Oversteer looks into everything that you need to know about Cadillac.

General Motors’ Cadillac F1 Team’s name

General Motors decided to bring its Cadillac brand to Formula 1 after taking over the failed Andretti entry. GM also simply decided to name the US car giant’s entry as Cadillac F1 Team.

General Motors’ Cadillac F1 Team’s drivers

Cadillac officially confirmed their 2026 F1 driver line-up of Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez in August 2025. After months of heavy speculation about who could race for the team in 2026, the GM brand announced the Finn and Mexican’s deals ahead of the 2025 Dutch Grand Prix.

Bottas and Perez will both race with the Cadillac Formula 1 team from the 2026 season on multi-year contracts. Cadillac chose to sign the two veteran drivers as they offer a plethora of experience, including over 500 Grand Prix starts as well as 16 race wins between them.

Bottas joined Mercedes at the start of the 2025 season as the team’s third driver after losing his seat at Sauber the previous year. The Finn previously spent 12 years in F1, taking 10 wins and 67 podiums across 247 race entries following his debut for Williams in the 2013 season.

Perez also left F1 at the end of 2024 after being released from his contract by Red Bull due to his poor performances. The Mexican stepped away from the paddock entirely following the news, but Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda’s woes at Red Bull in 2025 improved his stock.

The team has since confirmed the signing of Zhou Guanyu as the Cadillac reserve driver in 2026. The Chinese racer lost his spot on the grid in 2025 when Sauber opted for a brand new line-up of Nico Hulkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto.

General Motors’ Cadillac F1 Team’s team principal

General Motors continued its preparations for Cadillac to debut in Formula 1 by appointing Graeme Lowdon as the team principal on December 5, 2024. It signalled the Briton’s return to the F1 paddock since resigning as the sporting director of Manor Racing in October 2015.

Lowdon, who achieved a master’s degree in mechanical engineering, has an extensive CV in motorsport and has also been involved in the management team of China’s first full-time F1 driver, Zhou Guanyu. GM was drawn to Lowdon as he helped Manor enter F1 back in 2010.

Initially, Lowdon worked for General Motors as an executive advisor for two years while the automotive giant sought to gain its F1 entry for the 2026 season. Dan Towriss felt Lowdon’s technical and managerial experience in and out of F1 made him the perfect team principal.

General Motors’ project has even inherited many of the experienced Formula 1 personnel that Andretti had hired for its team. Nick Chester joined as the technical director, technical chief Pat Symonds is an advisor and Rob White signed up to be the chief operating officer.

General Motors’ Cadillac F1 Team’s founding year

General Motors’ team is set to debut in Formula 1 as Cadillac in the 2026 season. But it was founded in 2024 after GM agreed with F1 to enter its own team, rather than as a partner of the failed Andretti bid. Michael Andretti leaving the project was also a game-changing move.

Former F1 and IndyCar driver Michael Andretti had rubbed some people in the paddock the wrong way whilst trying to get the motorsport giant of his family’s name a place on the grid. Dan Towriss, owner of Andretti Global, is still one key investor in General Motors’ F1 project.

The 1978 Formula 1 drivers’ champion, Mario Andretti, is also involved in GM’s F1 team as a non-executive advisor to Cadillac. Michael’s father will not be involved in any of the day-to-day operations and will instead be a sounding board and source of leadership when needed.

What engine will General Motors’ Cadillac F1 Team use?

General Motors has committed to Cadillac developing their own Formula 1 power units, but the team will not run their own engines until at least the 2028 season. GM agreeing to build F1 power units was essential for Liberty Media to permit the team’s entry to join F1 in 2026.

Andretti had initially tempted GM to explore building F1 engines to supply their team, which laid the foundations for Cadillac’s entry. So, when GM enters F1 directly via Cadillac, its team will start as an engine customer of Ferrari after striking a multi-year deal in December 2024.

Ferrari announced they had agreed to supply Cadillac with engines from 2026 as Sauber will no longer be a customer of theirs. Audi took over Sauber in 2026 and run the Swiss crew as a works F1 team with a factory engine. Sauber’s switch left Haas as Ferrari’s only customer.

But GM only intends for Cadillac to be an engine customer of Ferrari for the team’s first few seasons on the Formula 1 grid. General Motors even established a new engine company in January 2025 called GM Performance Power Units to build the engine Cadillac will use in F1.

General Motors’ Cadillac F1 Team’s factory base

General Motors is still to confirm the final location for the Cadillac F1 Team’s factory that will build the cars which will debut in 2026. But GM has already adapted some of its motorsport technical centre in Charlotte, North Carolina to test prototype Formula 1 engine technology.

The Andretti entry from which GM’s team is largely based had also already invested heavily to establish a headquarters in the USA plus a satellite facility in the UK which transferred to the new Cadillac programme upon General Motors taking over the team’s Formula 1 entry.

Andretti’s US headquarters were based in Fishers, close to Indianapolis, but General Motors also conducted some design R&D work at its factory in Charlotte. The Andretti project even opened a new 40,000-square-foot design team facility in Silverstone, England in April 2024.

The Silverstone factory was designed for Andretti’s aero and mechanical departments. The Andretti project from which GM’s Cadillac F1 Team owes its true roots also intended to buy another 70,000-square-foot adjacent building opposite the home of the British Grand Prix.