Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to build the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
