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Cadillac F1's advantage in 2026 is big trouble for Red Bull, Mercedes & Ferrari

General Motors and Andretti Global will enter Formula 1 in the 2026 season as the 11th team. They will compete in the pinnacle of motorsport as Cadillac F1.

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Venkatakrishnan
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Cadillac F1 team advantage agaisnt Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari

Cadillac F1 team Photograph: (Instagram)

The American Auto giant General Motors is entering Formula 1 in the 2026 season as the 11th team along with Andretti Global. The 2026 season will be the first time since 2016 that we will see 22 cars occupying the grid. Andretti Global planned to enter Formula 1 as the 11th team but their calls were rejected as many teams felt they didn’t have the brand value for promotion and were commercially not marketable. So they called General Motors to be their partner to start an F1 team. 

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The American carmaker agreed and together with Andretti applied for team ownership. Initially, it was said that the team would be called the Andretti F1 team, but after careful examination, Cadillac was chosen as the team name as they felt it had more brand value. The FIA and F1 nodded their head for GM and announced Cadillac F1 will compete starting from the 2026 season.

They will enter the 2026 Formula 1 season by partnering with Ferrari as their engine supplier. Mario Andretti the former F1 world champion will be their chief advisor, Graeme Lowdon will be their team principal and Pat Symonds as their executive engineering consultant. They have also set up a new facility in Silverstone, England along with their power unit facility in Charlotte, North Carolina. The team will use Ferrari power units until 2030 and after that, they will bring their own engines manufactured by GM.

Cadillac F1 will have a big advantage

Now they seem to have an initial advantage against big teams like Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren for the 2026 F1 season. This year will be the last year the current hybrid engines will be used in F1 because from 2026 new regulations will kick in and F1 cars will have more battery power balanced with ICE.

So this is a huge task for teams as they need to spend money on their cars for this year and also the next one. But Cadillac will have all the luxury until 2026 and they can focus solely on the 2026 regulations while their rivals have double the work compared with them. 

They can have a head start ahead of every other team having spent all their money on car development and come up with the best-ever design and engineered machine. They can even win the championship just like Brawn GP did in 2009 on their maiden F1 season. 

Also Read: Ford vs Ferrari: The Greatest Motorsport Rivalry returns to F1 & WEC!

Formula 1 Red Bull Mercedes Ferrari F1 Cadillac F1
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