Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has required a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each day that goes by minds are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this nimble strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
