Approximately one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the objective of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, different from the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that manager talks to a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
