A little more than one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has involved a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning 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 introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that passes thoughts are sharper on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project 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 manager communicates with a manager in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
