Approximately a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has involved a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now at over 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the program at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
