Approximately a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the race track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the project at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
