Cadillac will become the 10th brand-new Formula 1 team in the last 30 years when it lines up on the grid for the 2026 Australian Grand Prix.
When it does so, it will boast an all-race-winning line-up of Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez - but where does its pairing rank amongst the first driver line-ups of debutant teams?
We asked our panel - Edd Straw, Scott Mitchell-Malm, Matt Beer and Josh Suttill - to rank the last 10 from worst to best.
10th - HRT 2010
Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna
Edd: 10th, Scott: 10th, Matt: 9th, Josh: 10th
A turbulent winter of 2009/10 that included completely missing pre-season testing was a solid sign that the Hispania Racing Team never really stood a chance of succeeding in F1.
Its all-rookie line-up, GP2 race winners Karun Chandhok and Bruno Senna, had to wait until the Bahrain season-opener to turn a wheel in the car - ending up well over eight seconds off the pace in qualifying.
Things didn’t get much better thereafter, with a hopeless struggle of a first part of the season before both drivers were benched before the summer break, with a best finish of 14th between them.
Scott Mitchell-Malm called it “possibly the most likeable pairing on this list? But, unfortunately, an uninspiring one” that “still deserved better than the machinery they were given”.
Edd Straw said HRT hiring “two rookies, regardless of their abilities, is not the way to go for a new team unless forced by financial concerns and lack of interested and experienced alternatives”.
Matt Beer was the only member of the panel not to place it last but was still critical: “It's not like the F1 world thought 'wow, look what we were missing' when Senna moved up the grid”.
9th - Lola 1997
Vincenzo Sospiri and Ricardo Rosset
Edd: 9th, Scott: 7th, Matt: 10th, Josh: 8th
The ill-fated MasterCard Lola never even got to race in F1, but it did field a half-decent driver line-up when it failed to qualify for the 1997 Australian GP - a casual 11.603s off the pace - before it collapsed soon after.
Scott pondered, “Surely a contender for the biggest gap between 'quality of drivers' and 'quality of machinery' in F1 history?”
It was an “injustice” that this was the only crack that Vincenzo Sospiri ever got in F1, according to Josh Suttill, “especially because he didn’t exactly get a good, sustained shot at IndyCar/Le Mans later either.
“Michael Schumacher’s karting hero deserved far better throughout his career, not driving what’s probably the last ‘absolutely terrible F1 car’ that’s been made.”
Edd agrees, saying “Sospiri should have had a proper F1 career, but was a newcomer, while Rosset deserves more respect than he got, but had just one season under his belt”.
Matt ranked the duo last, even if it “feels harsh to put this pair at the bottom, but none of the new teams on this list had a genuinely bad line-up, they were all a bit mediocre at worst.
“Although Lola's awfulness means Sospiri and Rosset are often dismissed as no-hopers in F1 memories too (and Rosset did his reputation no favours with his terrible Tyrrell season), this was the duo that dominated the 1995 Formula 3000 season.
“It's just nothing that happened post-Lola particularly transformed how they were viewed, with Sospiri's subsequent title successes all in second-tier sportscar categories.”
8th Super Aguri 2006
Takuma Sato and Yuji Ide
Edd: 8th, Scott: 9th, Matt: 7th, Josh: 9th
Honda’s unofficial B-team Super Aguri had a brief but memorable two-and-a-bit-season F1 stint that started in 2006 with a dated Honda engine and an updated 2002 Arrows chassis.
It took discarded BAR Honda driver Takuma Sato and 31-year-old rookie Yuji Ide to form an all-Japanese line-up that would only last four races before Ide was dropped, with his superlicence suspended by the FIA to block any chance of a return later that year.
“If Lola was the last terrible F1 car, Yuji Ide has to be the last terrible F1 driver,” said Josh, who can’t place Super Aguri higher than ninth despite team leader Takumo Sato being a “decent if still inconsistently effective midfield operator who wouldn’t peak until 2007”.
Edd, who placed Super Aguri’s pairing eighth, believes “Ide was better than his risible reputation, but he was never the right driver to throw in with no preparation”.
Matt was the biggest advocate, placing Sato-Ide seventh: “Dragged down hugely by Ide. Pulled up hugely by Sato, who actually did some of his best work in F1 for Super Aguri - going from squandering chances in Jordan/BAR/Honda's to driving the wheels off a hopeless car.”
7th Toyota 2002
Mika Salo and Allan McNish
Edd: 6th, Scott: 8th, Matt: 8th, Josh: 7th
Toyota’s failed F1 project started with a low-key debut season with a driver line-up that only lasted a single year in the shape of Mika Salo and Allan McNish.
Edd rated this line-up sixth, saying “Salo's small/medium team experience made him the ideal signing, while McNish's testing experience at least mitigated his rookie status”.
Josh placed it seventh, believing McNish showed he was a “top-level driver outside of F1 who got his shot in F1 a decade too late”, but he can’t “dissociate Salo and Toyota with them being embarrassingly beaten by a Minardi on debut with a clumsy spin” in Melbourne 2002.
Matt and Scott both placed Toyota eighth, with Matt calling it “very much wrong time + wrong team” for McNish, while Scott labelled it “an odd combination”.
6th Haas 2016
Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutierrez
Edd: 4th, Scott: 5th, Matt: 6th, Josh: 6th
F1’s last brand-new team picked up 10-time podium finisher Romain Grosjean to lead its team alongside Esteban Gutierrez, who’d spent two seasons with Sauber.
Josh called Grosjean “the perfect choice for a new team and a decent coup to make him leave Team Enstone when Renault was just returning as a manufacturer”.
But, as is a common theme among our panel, “Gutierrez was a deeply underwhelming choice that wasted probably the best debutant F1 car of the last 30 years”.
Scott described it as “a line-up that looked a bit less one-sided on paper than it turned out to be, but was always very much expected to be carried by Grosjean”, while Edd said “Grosjean was one of F1's quickest when he got it together, while Gutierrez brought a season's racing experience and Ferrari testing know-how”.
5th Virgin 2010
Timo Glock and Lucas di Grassi
Edd: 7th, Scott: 6th, Matt: 4th, Josh: 4th
A line-up that makes the top four of both Matt and Josh’s list, but is dragged to a (tie-break victory) fifth place finish by Edd and Scott’s lower placing.
Edd still rates Virgin’s choice of its first F1 drivers, however, saying “Glock's signing was a coup, especially given it beat Renault to his signature, while di Grassi had the ability on and off track for a better F1 career”.
Scott has plenty of praise for it too, believing “Glock was way better than this level of team deserved and di Grassi was a good standard for a rookie, so this was actually a very solid pairing”.
Josh calls this the perfect mix of ‘somewhat established F1 driver and exciting rookie”, whose subsequent World Endurance Championship and Formula E success makes him wish di Grassi got a shot somewhere else in the late-2000s or early 2010s.
“Glock is also a sad tale of what could have been. He spends two years looking decent at Toyota before then having to spend three hopeless years at Virgin, outperforming three different rookie team-mates, which only makes trying to understand his true F1 level impossible.”
Matt concluded: “Di Grassi was better than he ever looked in F1, and Glock was an underrated battler who was an ideal new team choice and might've done some decent stuff for Virgin if it hadn't been so woefully off the pace.”
4th Stewart 1997
Rubens Barrichello and Jan Magnussen
Edd: 5th, Scott: 3rd, Matt: 5th, Josh: 5th
There’s plenty of praise for Stewart entering F1 in 1997 with Rubens Barrichello - Josh calls this “peak Barrichello that falsely gives you hope he might trouble Schumacher at Ferrari” - but it’s Jan Magnussen who is “dragging this line-up down” in the words of Matt.
Magnussen entered his first full-time F1 season with lofty expectations behind him that he never came close to delivering.
“A classic blend of experience with Barrichello entering his fourth season, and a highly rated rookie in Magnussen, who ultimately ended up ill-suited to F1 and the team environment,” summarised Edd.
3rd Lotus 2010
Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli
Edd: 3rd, Scott: 4th, Matt: 2nd, Josh: 2nd
Cadillac isn’t the first new 21st-century team to field an all-race-winning line-up immediately, as Team Lotus secured 2004 Monaco GP victor Jarno Trulli and 2008 Hungarian GP winner Heikki Kovalainen for the team’s maiden bow in 2010.
They - along with the team designing the most competitive car of the new teams - managed to start the most brightly of 2010’s new team batch, even if that early promise was never built on.
Lotus had the lead car of F1’s cast adrift ‘Class C’ fight in 12 of the 19 races, and that was partly down to the quality of line-up, which “ticked all the boxes for a new team; a pair of one-time grand prix winners, both with top team experience”.
Matt considered placing them first as they were a “massively better line-up than the car deserved” but didn’t because “we knew too much about both drivers' limitations by 2010”.
Scott placed them fourth and said: “Race winner status boosted both, so gave it some nice pedigree, and they should have been a nice mix of youth and experience, but Trulli's career trajectory was already going in the wrong direction”.
Josh praised the line-up as helping Lotus “look like the most serious of the new teams” and called it “one of the best point-less driver line-ups in F1 history”.
2nd BAR 1999
Jacques Villeneuve and Ricardo Zonta
Edd: 2nd, Scott: 1st, Matt: 3rd, Josh: 3rd
Scott placed BAR’s first F1 driver line-up of 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve and rookie Ricardo Zonta as the number one on his list - we’re assured that he was under no influence or pressure from Bring Back V10s host and Villeneuve fan Glenn Freeman.
“Villeneuve's post-F1 journey has been, err, nomadic, but he was a world champion at the peak of his powers in the late 1990s and Zonta, while a rookie, had a mega track record,” Scott explained.
“A new team can't ask for a better blend.”
Edd placed it second, adding “building a new team around a recent world champion is a rare opportunity, while Zonta had the ability to do so much more in F1”.
Josh was less impressed, placing this line-up third.
“Signing a world champion is a massive coup for a new team, but it said far more about Villeneuve’s character than it did the team,” Josh said.
“It will never be repeated, not because there won’t be another team like BAR - there will be plenty who can match the low standard it set in 1999 - but because there won’t be another Jacques Villeneuve.”
He added Zonta being a “big letdown based on his pre-F1 achievements” hurts this line-up, “despite Villeneuve putting in one of his final great F1 seasons”
Matt also placed BAR third and said: “A recent world champion and a driver very highly rated from his Formula 3000 and FIA GT exploits at that point - but this wasn't the best version of Villeneuve and Zonta never lived up to what was expected.”
1st Cadillac 2026
Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez
Edd: 1st, Scott: 2nd, Matt: 1st, Josh: 1st
They may not have even turned a wheel for Cadillac yet, but our panel has named Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez as the strongest driver line-up for a new F1 team in the last 30 years.
Edd explained: “Experience is essential for new teams and this combination brings that in spades, as well as recent experience of two of F1's top teams.”
Josh added: “Perez still has plenty more to give in F1, his time at Red Bull is only going to age better and better as his replacements continue to struggle”.
Matt placed them first but cautioned, “Please don't mistake this for a passionate argument that Cadillac has played a blinder by bringing these two back onto the grid - I'd have personally paired just one of them (probably Bottas, his most recent F1 performances had fewer question marks over them than Perez's) with someone fresher.
“But when you line them up against everyone else on this list, the fact they're both such well-proven race-winning quantities actually makes the difference compared to other new teams' less convincing veterans and ultimately disappointing rookies.”
Having placed BAR in first place, Scott picked Cadillac over Lotus for second place, saying, “proven race winners with immense experience, this is a slightly higher-grade and more balanced combination than the Kovalainen/Trulli pairing”.
