A little more than twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the America, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes focus are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO shared this view he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to build the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the program across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
