Approximately twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes minds are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the race track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on various components of the program at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
