A little more than one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has required a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to change team culture.”
With each day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on various components of the program across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
