A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as F1's latest entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from the ground up has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change team culture.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the track. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with employees now reaching over 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
