Approximately twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Building the team from scratch has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with staff now at more than 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a leader at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Moving away from management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
