Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the official approval as F1's newest participant for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, different from the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the project across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
