Just over a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the America, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses focus are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now at over 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
