Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as F1's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now at more than 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 swiftly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the team are in the phase of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the project in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that manager consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
