Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as F1's newest entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on various components of the project in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that manager talks to a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
