A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the green light as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in March 2023 shortly 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 considering the experience.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while the CTO shared this view he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now up to over 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on various components of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
