A little more than twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at more than 400 and scheduled to hit the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the process of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a manager in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
