Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to change team culture.”
With every day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now up to over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
