Just over twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the season to be staged in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, 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 not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 shortly 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’ve done and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter team culture.”
With every day that goes by focus are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the program in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager communicates with a manager in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
