Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses focus are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now reaching over 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader consults a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this nimble methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
