A little more than a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the green light as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has entailed a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time 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 sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a amused expression when considering the ride.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming critical moment in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the mission in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
