Just over a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the mission across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this nimble approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
