Just over twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has required a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 members quickly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult 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 implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager consults a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
