A little more than twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has entailed a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an F1 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 won't have the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the looming decisive point in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “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 aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
