Just over a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the project at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
