A little more than a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of six hundred quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to build the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
