Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as F1's newest entry for 2026. Establishing the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first 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 task, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the circuit. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now at more than 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling various components of the program across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
