Approximately a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the United States, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”
With every day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of completing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Avoiding management approval for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
