Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that passes focus are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
