A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now at over 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
