A little more than a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Establishing the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal just before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that leader communicates with a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
