Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the official approval as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the America, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses minds are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the goal of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that manager consults a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
