Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has entailed a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are more focused on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, contrary to the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
