Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, 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 transform team culture.”
With every day that passes focus are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and intended to hit the objective of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling different aspects of the mission in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile strategy will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
