Just over twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the race track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the process of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling various components of the program in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
