Just over a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“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 feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at over 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
