Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Australia 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 feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while the CTO echoed this he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now at over 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the mission across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
