Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, 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 enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and has a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers 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 Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 members quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to produce the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the program in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
