Just over a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the green light as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a amused expression when considering the ride.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the race track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the phase of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
