A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's latest entry for 2026. Establishing the squad from the ground up has entailed a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural 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 challenge, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the program at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
