A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has involved a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each day that goes by minds are sharper on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now at over 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the program at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
