Approximately a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the green light as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now reaching more than 400 and intended to hit the target of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
