Just over twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
