A little more than a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from scratch has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the program across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader talks to a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
