A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are sharper on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 rapidly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the project across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that manager communicates with a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
