Who should GM sign for Cadillac’s F1 entry? Our writers have their say

Formula 1’s driver market for 2026 is expected to be a lot less lively than the seat-swapping antics that spanned the entirety of last season, as many of the championship’s key players are locked in for the advent of F1’s new regulatory overhaul.

That said, there’s one key destination that many of those left out in the cold for 2025 may choose to pursue, as Cadillac’s welcome to the grid opens up an extra two seats. Not only is it a chance for the seat-less speedsters to reignite their F1 careers, but also offers opportunities for new drivers to write their own names in history – for better or for worse.

Which drivers make the most compelling cases for General Motors to mull over for its maiden F1 voyage? Our writers have cast their eye over the most likely candidates – or even offered their own suggestions for a Caddy drive…

Why Cadillac should call on Valtteri – Alex Kalinauckas

Cadillac’s F1 arrival in 2026 will be notably different from that of Audi – in that the GM brand is starting from scratch rather than buying an existing team. It’s therefore going to need experienced personnel that bit more, with this being even more important for at least one of its two most significant employees: its first F1 drivers.

The idea of Cadillac bringing an American driver into F1 is as delightfully romantic as it’s shrewd business sense. But given even a top line IndyCar peddler such as Colton Herta (more on that later) would therefore be a category rookie, their team-mate is going to need bags of F1 experience alongside proven speed and a track record of helping a team develop on the technical front.

Step forward, Valtteri Bottas.

The Finn can feel somewhat aggrieved to have dropped off the field in 2025 – although the junior career of his replacement at Sauber, Gabriel Bortoleto, at least matches that in title terms of Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Lando Norris. The Brazilian certainly deserves a crack at the top level.

But Bottas can offer Cadillac calm and detailed efforts to get its first F1 car up to speed. He’s familiar with the Ferrari engine that the US squad will use for at least its first two years and won’t rock the boat if early results prove hard to come by.

Bottas is also seriously quick, even very deep into his career. He pushed Lewis Hamilton far harder over one lap during their time as Mercedes team-mates than he’s given credit for and he ended 2024 with a 20-3 qualifying record against Zhou Guanyu (from all counting sessions). This stands alongside Max Verstappen’s 21-3 against Sergio Perez and Lando Norris going 20-4 versus Oscar Piastri.

Not helping matters for Bottas is how looking at the averages of each driver’s 10 fastest laps in every race last year (where they did complete that total and with important caveats around strategy and incidents in mind), he came out bottom of the pile in an analysis I recently conducted for Autosport magazine. Car performance has plenty to do with such a result, but Zhou’s average was a surprise 0.238s better.

But even if he’s not quite at the level he once was, Bottas’s energy and character would not just been a boon to the burgeoning Cadillac squad, but F1 overall.

Now he’s got a year on the sidelines but still with a role to play back at Mercedes as reserve driver, he’s got to make the case directly to Graeme Lowdon and co. Well, it worked for Nico Hulkenberg with Gunther Steiner in 2022…

Cashing a Checo that Red Bull couldn’t afford to keep – Ben Vinel

Sergio Perez admittedly would be an odd choice for Cadillac following his dismal 2024 season – such a catastrophic campaign that Red Bull put an early end to its contract with the Mexican. An odd choice, at first sight.

Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

There is no doubt that Perez’s performance last year is not representative of what he can do as a driver. Sometimes things just won’t click anymore for one reason or another, be it technical or psychological. And that’s how several high-profile partnerships ended in F1’s history, like Sebastian Vettel with Ferrari in 2020.

In the past, Perez proved that he was a consistent driver with flashes of brilliance. Probably not blindingly quick to the extent that he could be a world champion, but solid enough that he was a brilliant asset to any midfield team. And now, he’s one of the top eight F1 drivers ever in terms of grands prix starts – no fewer than 281.

The 34-year-old veteran could therefore be an ideal pick for Cadillac to build its new F1 team around. From a commercial point of view, Perez’s sponsors can only be a positive, and he could boost General Motors’ sales in Mexico. GM sold some 184,000 vehicles – including around a thousand Cadillacs – in the Central American country in 2023. That’s just 3% of its worldwide output.

What remains to be seen is whether Perez remains motivated enough to put his head down and dedicate himself to such a major project.

Keep the Zhou on the road – Stuart Codling

This would be a no-brainer suggestion even if newly appointed Cadillac F1 team principal wasn’t Zhou Guanyu’s manager. Enlightened self-interest from the top table is hardly new in F1. Zak Brown is involved in Lando Norris’s management and this has disadvantaged McLaren not one jot.

Zhou Guanyu, Stake F1 Team KICK Sauber

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Zhou has the necessary experience with ground-effect F1 machinery and he is, reportedly, diligent, professional and hard-working in the garage. While his results at Sauber have offered cause for celebration only rarely, the cars have seldom been good during his tenure. Notably, he scored the team’s first points last year once it finally applied an update which added performance.

Even if you’re not a fan, the commercial logic makes sense. Granted, the likely reality of the team’s first year or two will be more a case of “Turn up on Sunday, hope to sell on Monday”, but Zhou is an eminently marketable figure in his home country.

Currently, GM sells more Cadillacs in China than it does in the US, but overall GM’s market share is declining and its joint-venture operations there – including but not limited to the one that builds Cadillac models locally – lost $200 million in 2023, the most recently published set of figures.

Try an IndyCar star? It certainly wouldn’t Herta – Jake Boxall-Legge

Cadillac might not necessarily have a stipulation that it needs to run an American driver in its opening foray into F1. Experience is surely the priority for one of the seats but, for sheer marketing value and the opportunity to cement itself as a bonafide, all-American entry (based in the UK and underpinned by an Italian powerplant), a US-based driver would be a great asset. And, surely, Colton Herta has to spearhead that list.

Colton Herta, Andretti Global w/ Curb-Agajanian Honda

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

Herta’s been within touching distance of F1 before; let’s not forget that it was merely superlicence points that precluded him from an AlphaTauri drive…okay, it’s a fairly hefty hurdle, but the talks were nonetheless advanced. The story goes that AlphaTauri was unwilling to let Pierre Gasly leave for Alpine unless it could secure Herta’s services – of course, the subsequent switch to secure Nyck de Vries’ services allowed Gasly to move to pastures new.

This time, Herta’s a lot closer to the golden 40 superlicence points. Finishing second in last year’s IndyCar standings put Herta on 32 points overall – he’d ‘just’ need to finish fourth in this year’s championship to hit the mark.

Ultimately, the most important question concerns performance. Herta is said to have been impressive when testing for McLaren in 2022, enough for AlphaTauri to want to secure his services for the following year. Let’s not forget that he was a close competitor of Lando Norris’s in MSA F4, leading then-boss Trevor Carlin to extol the American’s virtues across the British junior scene. Herta would need time to adapt, and Cadillac might need to consider a try-before-you-buy approach – ie. throw money at another team to run him in an FP1 session or ring-fence some TPC time to see if he’s up to scratch in F1.

On talent, he has what it takes to succeed. Whether Herta would want to trade his cushy IndyCar drive for F1’s piranha pit is another matter entirely…

Palou: Is it he you’re looking for? – Filip Cleeren

I obviously understand the family links and the desire for Cadillac to put an American driver in one of its cars. But if the American manufacturer is going to turn towards IndyCar to find one of its recruits, then why not take the best driver available? Alex Palou has had an unbelievable IndyCar career thus far, taking just five seasons to notch up three drivers’ titles, and 12 wins.

Champion Alex Palou, Chip Ganassi Racing Honda

Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images

At Ganassi, he has compared favourably to Scott Dixon, the best driver of his generation and still considered the gold standard in IndyCar racing, and his consistency in particular has been outstanding, collecting 30 podiums over the 81 races he has contested, which included a rookie season with minnow Dale Coyne.

Palou is still chasing the elusive Indy 500 win, but other than that the Spaniard has little to prove in North America and at 27 he is still young enough to give F1 a fair crack. He has never made any secret of his ambitions to do so, having become embroiled in a contract dispute with Ganassi and McLaren in 2022 as he tried to force a move to the papaya team, which looked able to offer him a path towards an F1 program in the future. He then walked away from his McLaren deal when he lost faith that he would be able to land an F1 seat with the team.

Palou has since reconciled with Ganassi and vowed to keep trying to win more IndyCar championships, and clinching that all-important Indy 500, with the team. But if an F1 seat is on the table again – not a vague possibility of one in the future, but a concrete, guaranteed 2026 berth – why wouldn’t he at least consider it?