A little more than a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has involved a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to hit the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor consults a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
