A little more than a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the go-ahead as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the circuit. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager consults a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
