Approximately a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now at over 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “We give authority to people to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
