Just over a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in early 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 has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, 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 opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to attain the goal of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling various components of the project across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
