A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the project across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that leader communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
