Cadillac will test a 2023 Ferrari Formula 1 car at Imola with Sergio Perez next month as it intensifies preparations for its 2026 debut.
The General Motors works team, which is co-owned by TWG Motorsports, will enter F1 next year using Ferrari customer engines and a driver line-up of Perez and Valtteri Bottas.
Most of its operational preparation until now has been conducted through simulating race weekends but it has leant on its Ferrari partnership to be able to get boots on the ground and begin building race team experience.
Cadillac had two test sessions planned to start putting together its mechanics and race engineers plus Ferrari personnel who will work with the team next year given the customer relationship.
One of those sessions has already occurred. This is believed to have taken place at Ferrari's test facility at Fiorano.
The other will be a two-day test running a 2023 Ferrari SF-23 at Imola on November 13-14 with Perez driving.
Ferrari is allowed to test two-year-old cars - like it did with 2025 signing Lewis Hamilton at the start of the year - and team boss Fred Vasseur said "we gave two of our days to Cadillac".
"The issue is not too much the car, I would say, strangely, it's more the logistics, the set-up of the garage, the infrastructure, the IT system and so on," said Vasseur.
"And I think it's a good test for them to put everything in place."
This is a case of 'loaning' the car and then Cadillac is responsible for operating it. The purpose of the test is not a full-blown affair to pursue set-up changes and chase performance but to establish the right internal practices and develop verbal and physical communication in the garage and over the radio.
The benefits are two-fold. Perez gets back behind the wheel of an F1 car for the first time since his last race for Red Bull in Abu Dhabi last December, and Cadillac's team gets valuable operational experience on various tasks like refuelling, operating tyre warmers, working on the car, bleeding the hydraulics, and so on.
Cadillac's team members are not new to F1, as it has recruited many from different teams, but each will have its own way of doing things and the key is to start building a 'Cadillac' way of communicating.
This comes down to what vocabulary is used over the radio but also the right movements and actions within the garage and in the pitlane.
It is the next step in bringing together the real-world race team, although virtual simulations will continue. Cadillac has run several race weekends remotely this season, sometimes in parts like the Friday of the United States Grand Prix weekend, but also in full.
This includes everything from running entire race distances to understanding how mandatory driver media appearances impact the start time of post-session debriefs.
It will engage in a full sprint weekend simulation for the first time over November's Brazilian Grand Prix.
Cadillac is running the entry itself from multiple locations as it massively lags behind the existing teams in terms of infrastructure and personnel.
It has a primary operations base at Silverstone, and is conducting windtunnel testing from Toyota's Cologne site in Germany, but also plans to utilise a brand new TWG facility at Fishers in Indiana, as well as Cadillac and GM technology centres.
Then there is a new GM Performance Power Units headquarters in North Carolina where the team's planned works engine will be designed, tested and built.
