A little more than a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has involved a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling various components of the mission across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
