Approximately one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now at over 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the mission in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
