Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as F1's latest entry for 2026. Constructing the team from scratch has required a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the United States, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each day that elapses focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
