Just over a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that manager talks to a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
