A little more than twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes minds are sharper on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the race track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal just before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the program at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
