F1 formally approve arrival of new Cadillac team with Silverstone base to enter sport from 2026

Formula One have formally approved the arrival of a new team in the form of Cadillac F1, with the new team including a set-up with a Silverstone base.

The team, who is backed by US motor corporation General Motors, formally agreed a deal in principle to join the Formula One grid from 2026 with the sport’s promoters Formula One Management in November.

Formal confirmation has now been reached between world motorsport’s governing body the FIA and FOM, with Cadillac F1 to become the grid’s 11th team from 2026 onwards.

The move will see Cadillac become the first new entry to the Formula One grid since Haas joined in 2016.

In a statement on the F1 website, Stefano Domenicali, President and CEO of Formula 1, said: “As we said in November, the commitment by General Motors to bring a Cadillac team to Formula 1 was an important and positive demonstration of the evolution of our sport.

“I want to thank GM and TWG Motorsports for their constructive engagement over many months and look forward to welcoming the team on the grid from 2026 for what will be another exciting year for Formula 1.”

The team operators previously opened a Silverstone base in April 2024 as part of their approach to get started on their attempts to enter the sport, with the 48,000 square foot facility adjacent to the race-track intended to house manufacturing facilities, ADM, electronics, R&D and additional office and meeting facilities. The site is one of three that will be used by the team, alongside further facilities in the American states of Indiana and North Carolina.

The team had initially bid to enter F1 under the Andretti banner, but the proposal was initially rejected by Formula One. A revised proposal renamed as Cadillac with the greater involvement of General Motors ultimately won the approval of F1 to get into the sport.

Cadillac F1 have confirmed a structure with Graeme Lowdon as Team Principal and former Renault duo Pat Symonds and Nick Chester in high-ranking roles as part of a team that already has over 200 staff. The team will initially race with Ferrari customer engines, with plans to bring in a bespoke General Motors power unit after a few years.

No drivers have yet been confirmed, with announcements on that front expected later in the year.

In his own statement, Lowdon said, “In terms of being ready to race, everything is on schedule.“We don’t just want to turn up and race, we want to be as competitive as we possibly can be.

“From that point of view, for sure we would have loved to have had more time and more people because the more of that you have, the more performance you can build in. But we recognised that the process itself requires a huge amount of energy and effort.

“There’s an awful lot of work that has gone on in the background. There’s still a lot of work to do. We’re in a significantly better position now that we’re now a fully-fledged F1 team. We will have access to all the data and information that all the other teams have.

“Now we can really push to come up with the most competitive car that we can. The team is already very sizeable, we’re very comfortable about the position we’re in, in terms of being ready to go racing in 2026.”