Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a amused expression when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
