Just over twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from the ground up has required a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted 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, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the program at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
