A little more than a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses focus are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the program in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
