Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has required a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad 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 go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the mission across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
