Just over a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the green light as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the season to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with staff now reaching more than 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that leader communicates with a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
