Approximately twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the green light as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Building the team from nothing has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 members quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, 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 different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that manager consults a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
