Approximately a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the project in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
