Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are sharper on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now at over 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the program at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
