Approximately twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entry for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has required a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes focus are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
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 assortment of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that manager consults a leader in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
