Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in operating 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’re realistic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now up to over 400 and planned to attain the goal of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
