Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to manufacture the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the program at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
