Approximately one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, 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 created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that manager talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower staff to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
