A little more than a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“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 well-set team you won't have the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad 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 commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 members quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the process of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, 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 implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
