A little more than a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a amused expression when considering the ride.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
