A little more than a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment 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 emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 rapidly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on various components of the mission across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
