A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest entry for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to change team culture.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that leader consults a manager in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this nimble strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
