A little more than a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the United States, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now at over 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, different from the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the project in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
