Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
