Just over a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be held in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 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 rarely get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the project in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The success of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
