A little more than a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as F1's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to transform team culture.”
With every day that passes focus are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be 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 stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and planned to reach the goal of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
