A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, 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, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the looming critical moment in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and intended to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
