Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has entailed a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged 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 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes focus are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to over 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager consults a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
