A little more than a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has involved a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to change team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching more than 400 and intended to reach the objective of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
