Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has entailed a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader talks to a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The success of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
