Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and expectations 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 feat in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now at more than 400 and planned to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on various components of the project across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that manager communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
