A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO echoed this he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that leader consults a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
