A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has required a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a amused expression when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching more than 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling various components of the project in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a leader at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
