In the Fast Lane: Audi and Cadillac Gear Up to Join Formula 1

As the lights go out in Melbourne, Australia, to kick off the first race of the 2026 Formula 1 season, an international roster of 22 drivers in the most spectacular cars on the planet will race in pursuit of the checkered flag. Among them will be two new teams—Audi and Cadillac—competing head-to-head against established rivals, including Mercedes-Benz, Red Bull, Aston Martin, McLaren and Ferrari.

These iconic industry names will be facing off in a globe-trotting sporting event that crosses borders like no other, touching down in 21 countries, with a lineup of drivers representing 14 different nations.

For newcomers Audi and Cadillac, entering the Formula 1 fray isn’t just about taking first place, although that would help. It is also about prestige, about positioning themselves as leaders in high-performance and electrified vehicles and getting their brands in front of F1’s enormous audience of 827 million fans.

Cadillac—which is working with TWG Motorsports to build a team from the ground up—will endeavour to establish itself as America’s Team, while pushing more customers to its rapidly expanding lineup of electric vehicles, both stateside and around the world. Crucially, joining F1 puts the brand in front of millions of new potential customers in Europe, laying the groundwork for Cadillac’s ambitious international proliferation.

“As we expand Cadillac into a global brand, into places where either we haven’t been in a long time or have never been, the series offers exposure for Cadillac and the brand as it grows globally,” Mark Reuss, president of Cadillac’s parent company General Motors, was quoted in a 2023 interview with F1 site The Race.

By taking over the current Sauber F1 team, Audi, meanwhile, will look to add to its extensive trophy cabinet of rally- and endurance-racing victories, including a win at the 2024 Dakar Rally and an incredible 13 victories at the prestigious Le Mans 24 Hours race in France, from 2000 and 2014. Beyond hardware, the company will want to boost the credibility and awareness of the brand’s performance-minded Audi Sport models and its trove of electric e-tron vehicles.

And while F1 cars have about as much in common with road cars as fighter jets do with commercial airliners, the old racing cliché still applies: “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.”

“The series holds races in all relevant markets of the brand,” Audi wrote in a 2022 statement announcing its new team, adding that, “Formula 1 is popular in key markets such as China and the United States, and the trend continues to rise—even among younger target groups.”

Indeed, Formula 1 has never been more popular than it is right now, hot on the heels of Netflix’s Drive to Survive docuseries and Brad Pitt’s 2025 blockbuster F1. The high-octane movie wasn’t just Apple’s highest-grossing film to date, but also Pitt’s. (A sequel is, unsurprisingly, already in the works.)

Even before the film, in 2024, audience analytics firm Nielsen named Formula 1 “the most popular annual sporting series.” The sport’s fan base has additionally become younger and more diverse, with female representation rising to 42 per cent in 2025, up from 37 in 2018. And F1 is rapidly winning new fans across China, the United States and the Middle East. And with more eyeballs comes new sponsorship opportunities for high-value powerhouses, including TAG Heuer and Louis Vuitton.

“Cadillac is honoured to share the F1 stage with the best luxury brands from around the world,” Reuss said in a statement earlier this year, pointing to the notion that this sport is increasingly a place to see and be seen. 

The 2026 season presents the perfect opportunity for Audi and Cadillac to capture that attention, since major rule changes will, in theory, help level the playing field between new and established teams. For instance, starting next year, F1 cars will be powered by what the sport’s organizers describe as “100 per cent sustainable fuels” and revised hybrid engines that rely more heavily on electric power.

If the next era of F1 tells us anything, it’s that the sport is no longer judged by how many manufacturers join the grid, but by whether they can translate capital, culture, and engineering into staying power. The coming season will reveal if new entrants can deepen the ecosystem—or expose its limits. It could mark the start of a true shift in what modern motorsport represents, or a reminder of how unforgiving the sport’s ambitions can be. Either way, the stakes have never been clearer.