Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the squad from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by minds are more focused on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to more than 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
