Approximately twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Constructing the team from scratch has involved a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now up to more than 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager talks to a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
