Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the track. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred quickly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
