A little more than one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the green light as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing 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 existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now at over 400 and planned to reach the goal of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the project in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
