Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the official approval as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has involved a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
