Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the America, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the process of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on different aspects of the program across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
