Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to change team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets 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 accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that manager consults a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower staff to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
