Just over twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first 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 task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the race track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly 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 team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 quickly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that leader communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
