Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to alter team culture.”
With every day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 rapidly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
