Approximately one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now at over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 members quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the mission in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader talks to a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
