A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to more than 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, different from the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the program at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
