Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has entailed a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track 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 never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now up to more than 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 rapidly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
