🔗 Share this article

Just over one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut 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 monumental task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when thinking about the ride.

“There might be a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”

A Unique Task

Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the owner, GM, into Formula One.

“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”

With each day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.

“One must presume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.

“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive

In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of fighting spirit.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”

To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 members quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.

Space Mission Blueprint

“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on various components of the mission in a different facilities.

“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”

Upcoming Challenges

The effectiveness of this agile approach will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta