Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton walks in the Paddock during previews ahead of the Las Vegas F1 Grand Prix. REVERED as a fashion icon in America F1 legend Lewis Hamilton may have influenced Cadillac and General Motors to join the sport. AFP
Image: AFP
Cadillac will be the 11th team on the starting grid from 2026 after the American team was given a green light to enter the sport.
The FIA and Formula 1 this week confirmed Cadillac's completion of the respective sporting, technical and commercial assessments.
The Cadillac racing team is backed by General Motor (GM) and TWG Motorsports, with a base of operation outside Silverstone Raceway in the UK and are building their headquarters in Fishers, Indianapolis.
GM and TWG are also in the process of constructing their own power units facility for the construction of their engines going forward, but in the meantime, have struck a deal with Ferrari for parts.
Ferrari will supply the Cadillac team with an engine and gearbox for 2026, while they work on developing their in-house power unit that can hopefully keep up.
American’s have been known to dominate sports like Nascar and the Indy car 500, mainly because those motorsport disciplines are native to the USA. The Indy Car 500 is the closest relative to the F1 race, which is a world renowned spectacle.
But the sport of F1 has grown in popularity in the USA, which, arguably, could largely be owed to the success and reputation Lewis Hamilton churned throughout his career.
Hamilton’s stardom in the States as a driver and fashion icon could have given rise to the American’s ambition to pursue the sport.
Despite the mammoth task ahead of them, Cadillac team principal Graeme Lowdon says they are on schedule to race in 2026.
“We don’t just want to turn up and race, we want to be as competitive as we possibly can. From that point of view, for sure we would have loved to have more time and more people because the more you have, the more performance you can build in. We recognised the process itself requires a huge amount of energy and effort.
“In terms of timeline for production, we’re happy with where it stands. We’ve been using a lot of time up to now doing a lot of testing and validation of individual components. Things like testing of noses, squeeze testing of the chassis elements and the likes,” Lowdon said.
Since Haas joined in 2016, under principal Gunther Steinher, Cadillac will be the next new kid on the block in just under a decade as the Americans seek to stamp their name on the grandest motoring spectacle.
Team Cadillac have so far acquired a team of 200 staff, including former Renault technical specialists Nick Chester and Pat Symonds. But to be fair, 200 is a miniscule number if they are to even think of competing in the top five.
Ferrari has thousands of staff members behind its F1 team under Fred Vassuer, as does Red Bull and Mercedes AMG.
Lowdon said having both Chester and Symonds at the team give them a great start because of their knowledge in the game.
When it comes to drivers though, Cadillac wants to keep them as American as possible. At least one of them.
But the US-UK based team vows to employ its drivers on merit but sees no reason why they can’t hire Americans on merit too. Cadillac said they’ve also got a number of calls from drivers expressing interest in joining.
“There are some very talented drivers out there. We had not been able to be in the driver market until the entry was confirmed. Now that it has, we can move forward with that.
“For sure we are going to hire drivers based on merit. But as such, we see no reason as to why we won’t have American drivers in time. There’s nothing preventing a driver from being selected on merit and being American. I think that would be something a lot of fans would want to see as well,” Lowdon said.
The introduction of Cadillac also presents an opportunity for drivers in the wind or looking to make a jump.
But Cadillac will have to compete for drivers against already accomplished teams like Mercedes under Toto Wolff and Red Bull under Christian Horner, who are also in the driver market for someone to join Max Verstappen in 2026.