A little more than a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the official approval as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held in the America, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to over 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
