A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of building an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
