Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the green light as F1's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now at over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on various components of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
