Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has entailed a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural 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 endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
