A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for 2026. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 swiftly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
