A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by minds are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader talks to a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
