A little more than a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the America, with around 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 sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are sharper on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the phase of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the project across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
