A little more than a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “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’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and planned to hit the goal of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the phase of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, 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 decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Avoiding management approval for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
