A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has entailed a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the mission at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader talks to a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble approach 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 test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
