A little more than a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
