Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the go-ahead as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now up to over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the team are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the project at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
