Approximately twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to hit the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, different from the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that manager talks to a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
