Approximately a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has entailed a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are sharper on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now up to more than 400 and scheduled to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the project across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
