A little more than a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each day that elapses focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now reaching over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the project in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that leader communicates with a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta