Cadillacʼs moonshot: inside F1’s latest team and its NASA-inspired approach

Cadillac, Formula 1’s first genuinely new team since Haas a decade ago in 2016, is under no illusions about the challenges it is facing. It’s looking at them all day, ticking one second at a time.

On the walls of all its offices, the General Motors-backed squad has clocks counting down to its two major deadlines: the fire-up of its very first car in January, and the first race of the 2026 season in Melbourne in early March.

Cadillac’s entry into the series has been a complicated journey, and that’s putting it mildly. Originally pitched under the Andretti Cadillac umbrella and spearheaded by Michael Andretti, the team was denied entry by F1 chiefs in January 2024 after the commercial rightsholder felt the squad would not bring enough value to the grid to warrant adding an 11th team and diluting the prize fund.

After Andretti stepped aside and GM took on a bigger role, including the commitment to develop its own power unit for 2028, the rebranded Cadillac entry – this time overseen by Andretti Global parent company TWG Motorsports and its CEO Dan Towriss – finally received the green light last November over the Las Vegas Grand Prix weekend. Official approval followed in March this year.

But to suggest that Las Vegas was the start signal for Cadillac would be selling the team short. By then, its build-up had long been under way, even without approval, under former Virgin team boss Graeme Lowdon.

By Vegas the team had already employed around 300 people and the number was over 400 at the time of writing, with recruitment speeding up to around one new hire per day over 2025, the aim to double its workforce to 600 ahead of the first race.

Cadillac’s key technical leadership has already been in place for some time, with former Renault engineer Nick Chester installed as chief technical officer, former Williams man Jon Tomlinson as head of aerodynamics and John McQuilliam, who worked with Lowdon at Manor, the team’s chief designer.

Long-time Renault and Alpine stalwart Rob White signed up as chief operating officer, while Cadillac can also lean on the experience of Pat Symonds as engineering consultant. Russ O’Blenes became CEO of TWG GM Performance Power Units, overseeing the engine programme.

Team principal Lowdon sees the “opportunity” of working over multiple sites

Photo by: Cadillac Communications

Other key hires include race team manager Peter Crolla – formerly at Haas – and former Miami Grand Prix CEO Tyler Epp, who recently joined as the team’s commercial chief. They will eventually be spread over Cadillac’s European hub in Silverstone, a yet to be finished US headquarters in Fishers, Indiana as well as General Motors facilities in Michigan and North Carolina, where the team’s simulator is based. It has also invested in upgrades to Toyota’s wind tunnel in Cologne.

With its multi-location approach to a set of complex challenges and immovable deadlines, Lowdon says his squad has taken inspiration from NASA’s history-making Apollo programme for its very own moonshot. “It’s always a challenge to manage over multiple sites, but we see it as an opportunity,” Lowdon said earlier this year as Autosport visited its Silverstone factory.

“We’ve got a massive necessity for peer-to-peer interaction, so we need an engineer [at Silverstone] talking to an engineer in Charlotte and another one in Warren, Michigan, or eventually in Fishers. And so, we’ve looked to have a very flat management structure. It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project. It’s very similar.

“OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes… We’ve got a lot of experienced people here and we can offer them this flat structure and responsibility. When that car turns a wheel for the first time, everyone in here will be able to point at it and say, ‘I did that’. It’s mission control instead of command and control.”

“We’ve looked to have a very flat management structure. It’s modelled on the Apollo project. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes…” Graeme Lowdon

The flurry of incoming transfers shows how much momentum the team is building, the uncertainty over its entry long in the rear-view mirror. But as of now, Cadillac is still a team without a car and, while it is expected to do a deal with its 2026 engine supplier Ferrari to conduct Testing of a Previous Car, it is currently resorting to the virtual world to ensure it is ready.

Just like it couldn’t afford to wait for an entry to build up the team itself, it can’t sit still until Australia 2026 to prepare to be an operational part of the F1 grid.

Over the Italian Grand Prix weekend in September, the team simulated taking part in the actual event, with its car instead being driven in the simulator in Charlotte. In its operation rooms across both sides of the Pond, the team fully simulated the timetable of an actual grand prix weekend, down to making its drivers unavailable to the engineers due to simulated media duties.

Simon Pagenaud (2016 IndyCar champion), two-time F1 starter Pietro Fittipaldi and sportscar driver Charlie Eastwood are all part of Cadillac’s sim programme.

Bottas and Perez were signed up for their experience and grand prix-winning pedigree

Photo by: Cadillac Communications

“We have a plan to steadily build up so that when we get to Melbourne, we hit the ground running and we’re not in a position where people are hearing voices for the first time or working with each other for the first time,” explains Lowdon. “Similarly, there’s the simulator programme, which is operating at full strength and we’ll be introducing car testing as well this year.”

That testing work is soon going to start including its race drivers, with experienced free agents – 10-time GP winner Valtteri Bottas and six-time victor Sergio Perez – signing up in August. Former Red Bull man Perez made his first visit to the Silverstone plant in late September, while Bottas is still bound to Mercedes commitments.

Both drivers are in a very similar stage of their careers: mid-thirties race winners who lost their seat at the end of 2024, but felt the burning ambition to return to F1 even if it won’t be at the front anytime soon.

“Coming back to F1, my main target is to enjoy it again,” says Perez. “I had a very difficult year, my final year with Red Bull. This is a sport I love and this project just brings me that excitement back, because I’m able to put in all my years of experience, the different teams I worked with, to help this team move forward.

“We know we don’t have the time on our side, but we also can be a big surprise, because we’re bringing as much experience and commitment as possible. Not only with the drivers, but this is the same for all the areas in the team. It’s a new team, but everyone has a lot of experience in the sport.”

Bottas also says he was convinced by the prospect of being able to steer an ambitious start-up from the ground up, despite the prospect of what will likely be a difficult maiden season: “Early this year, it was clear for me that this is what I want. I want to be part of this great brand, this start-up F1 team, but with great structure and big goals.

“Of course, we’re realistic. There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start because it is F1, but we’re not there to stay at the back. We don’t want to finish last. And I believe with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”

For Lowdon, it was a no-brainer to bring in the most experienced and successful free agents available at the expense of promising rookies, at least for the team’s formative years: “They’re two incredibly experienced drivers, but I should stress as well that these guys are quick. They’re not hired just for the number of grands prix that they’ve entered. The experience is important.

Cadillac squad has simulated a full race weekend in preparation for 2026

Photo by: Cadillac Communications

“But these are two very, very quick race drivers and I can’t wait to go racing with them. I’ve had the benefit of bringing a new team in before so I know that some of the pitfalls and attributes for drivers are really quite important.”

Any concerns from American fans over the lack of homegrown representation were soon eased by the signing of test driver Colton Herta. The 25-year-old Californian, who moves over from the Andretti Global IndyCar team that shares TWG Motorsports ownership with the F1 operation, left his plum seat for a test role, which will including racing in Formula 2 in 2026 as he grabs what he calls his “last shot” to make it to F1.

While not setting such lofty targets as NASA’s series of moon landings, the first new squad in F1 in a decade is under no illusions of the challenges it is facing. To quote NASA flight director Gene Kranz, portrayed by Ed Harris in the popular 1995 movie Apollo 13: “Failure is not an option.”

“This is a dream opportunity, and one I’ve been working towards for a long time. To be part of Cadillac F1’s entry at such a pivotal time is something I couldn’t pass up" Colton Herta

The next American F1 star?

Cadillac’s goal of conquering Formula 1 has also become that of IndyCar star Colton Herta and, while there are still plenty of obstacles in his way, there is no questioning his commitment.

A nine-time race winner with Andretti Global, Herta has decided to give up his position near the top of the American open-wheel food chain for a test driver role with F1’s newest team.

“This is a dream opportunity, and one I’ve been working towards for a long time,” says Herta, who was seventh in this year’s IndyCar standings after taking runner-up in 2024. “To be part of Cadillac F1’s entry at such a pivotal time is something I couldn’t pass up.”

As part of his preparation for an eventual F1 seat, Herta will not only conduct private testing and free practice running, but will also fully abandon IndyCar to brave the vagaries of a 2026 F2 campaign with an as-yet unnamed squad, with no guarantee that an F1 seat will follow.

Test driver role is a “dream opportunity” for Herta, although he has a mountain to climb

Photo by: Penske Entertainment

“The easy thing would be to stay in IndyCar,” Herta said on the Off Track podcast hosted by James Hinchcliffe and Alexander Rossi.

“But this is my last shot at it. As a racing driver, you are constantly betting on yourself. I believe I’m fast enough to do it. If I didn’t think I can do it, I would stay in IndyCar.”

Herta came close before when a Portimao test with McLaren led to interest from Red Bull, which wanted to place him in an AlphaTauri seat for 2023.

The lack of required FIA superlicence points held Herta back, and he still needs to earn six more over the course of 2026 to qualify, which he can gain with a top eight classification in F2 and bolster with grand prix FP1 outings.

Herta therefore still has a mountain to climb, just like Cadillac itself, but his eventual presence on the grid would satisfy a desire from F1 to have a high-profile American driver at an American team, with the might of General Motors behind the ambitious effort to become a competitive force.