Approximately a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now at over 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the mission in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
