Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from the ground up has entailed a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”
With every day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at over 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
