A little more than twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the target of six hundred quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the program at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
