Just over a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to change team culture.”
With every day that elapses focus are more focused on the looming critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the mission at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
