Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has required a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
