Approximately a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the America, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and gets a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the mission in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
