Approximately twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport 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 Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now reaching over 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the new engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
