Approximately twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as F1's latest participant for 2026. Building the team from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are more focused on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the objective of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
