Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling various components of the program in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
