Just over a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from scratch has required a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to more than 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 members quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal just before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
