Just over twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now reaching over 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from management approval for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
