Just over one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as F1's newest entry for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to alter team culture.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to attain the goal of six hundred quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling different aspects of the mission at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
