A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as F1's latest participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from scratch has entailed a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix 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 don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by minds are sharper on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now at over 400 and scheduled to hit the target of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
