Inside Speed: What Makes Fast and Cadillac’s Formula 1 Debut
When the Cadillac Formula 1 Team takes to the grid at the start of the 2026 racing season, it will be the culmination of a gargantuan effort hundreds of people across the globe working tirelessly toward the debut of the first Formula 1 team fielded by an American car brand. A pulse-racing new documentary takes you behind the scenes of the startup Cadillac Formula 1 Team, showing exactly what it takes to launch an all-new effort in the pinnacle of global racing.
What Makes Fast: Cadillac’s Road to F1, a 10-part YouTube docuseries produced by General Motors, gives fans unprecedented access to the engineering, innovation, and human grit behind GM’s entry into Formula 1. The first episode, which you can watch now, shows the discussions and decisions at the very start of GM’s foray into Grand Prix racing.
GM News sat down with director David Gorvy to find out more about the documentary, and what viewers will see as each new episode debuts.
When you watch an F1 race on TV, you see the driver, the pit crew, the race engineer, the team principal – that’s like 20 people, said Gorvy. But if you know anything about how an F1 team works, there are hundreds of people working all over the world. Our series highlights the behind-the-scenes work that you don’t normally see on camera.
The series looks at the four basic elements that get a Formula car around the racetrack: the power unit, the aerodynamics, the tires, and of course, the driver. “The ultimate question we’re asking in this first season is, ‘how do you actually build an F1 team and car?’ So we’re starting from the basic elements of what makes a race car go fast,” Gorvy said.
For Gorvy, stepping into the top-secret facilities where GM is developing its Formula 1 car has been eye opening. I had no sense of the scale of these teams, the breadth of knowledge, he said. Every person we’ve met is extremely interesting. There is a crazy amount of time pressure, but the team culture is so respectful. It’s a fun, exciting place to work.
The first episode begins in June 2025, showing the early stages of engineering and simulator testing. The documentary is filmed nearly in real-time, with each episode following a critical milestone, from tire testing and aerodynamics refinement to the first fire-up of the Cadillac Formula 1 race car. The final episode is planned to debut in March 2026, immediately ahead of the start of the first Formula 1 race of the 2026 season.
We think of F1 as a sport, but it’s really so much more than that,” Gorvy said. “These folks are building rocket ships.
By Bob Sorokanich, senior editor, GM News
