Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With every day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the circuit. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader talks to a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
