Just over one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has required a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the target of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
