A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entry for 2026. Establishing the squad from scratch has entailed a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that manager communicates with a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
