A little more than a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 members quickly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader consults a leader in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
