A little more than twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume 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 stated this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the project at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
