Just over twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are more focused on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the mission at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
