Cadillac used fake tyres in wind tunnel testing for F1 2026

Cadillac will make its Formula 1 debut in 2026, but the preparation it made to reach this point was not without any setbacks, particularly in wind tunnel testing. 

The General Motors brand has become the championship’s 11th team this year after its entry was formally approved in March 2025, finally putting an end to what was a drawn-out process.

It coincides with F1’s new regulation changes which are arguably its biggest in history, as the chassis has become approximately 32kg lighter with less downforce, while the power unit is more electrical.

So because of that, plus how Cadillac’s eventual entry had been long expected, preparation actually began prior to March, but the American outfit did hit a snag with hoping to use Pirelli tyres in the wind tunnel. 

“We had some things against us,” said the team’s engineering consultant Pat Symonds. “For example, we were able to start looking at some development of the ‘26 regulations prior to the start of January [2025], but we were still sort of guessing what some of those regulations would be.

“Most importantly, we didn't actually have the Pirelli tyres to run in the wind tunnel, so we made our own tyres.

“The other teams had Pirelli contracts in place that gave them the tyres ready to start running 1 January. We didn't get ours until, well, getting on towards the end of the month, and when we put them on, they were a different shape to what we'd sort of guessed they might be.

“That meant that a lot of avenues that we'd been working on, we had to re-optimise. So some people think we started our area of development ahead of the others; I would say we started it behind the others.”

Graeme Lowdon, Team Principal of Cadillac Formula 1 Team and Pat Symonds, Executive Engineering Consultant of Cadillac Formula 1 Team

Photo by: Clive Mason/Getty Images

But it all worked out okay in the end as Cadillac, unlike Williams or Aston Martin, was on track for day one of 2026’s first collective shakedown in Barcelona, before also running in Bahrain testing last week. 

“Less than 12 months ago, we didn't even have an entry, let alone a car or some factories or anything else like that,” said team principal Graeme Lowdon in Bahrain.

“So, the progress has been huge. What I'm really happy about is we hit all of our timelines on time: we fired the car up in early December, we went onto the VTT (Virtual Test Track) in mid-December to do the all-car dyno stuff, we did the shakedown on schedule in Silverstone, we were in Barcelona for the shakedown on schedule.

“We've seen from other teams that it's not easy to do that. So, I'm really, really proud. But it wouldn't make sense to do any of that if we didn't feel as if we were on a forward trajectory performance-wise as well.

“And the shakedown work that we did in Barcelona was really useful. Now the attention really focuses to understanding our car and running it.

“We've done over 1,700 kilometres here in three days and trust me, as a new team, that is the biggest proportion of our data that literally we never had. That would be tiny for an existing team, but for us it's massive. So, real progress and just very, very proud of the whole team.”

Additional reporting by Filip Cleeren and Ronald Vording