Approximately a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the program in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
