Just over twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to over 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the process of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling various components of the mission at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
