A little more than a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO echoed this he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount 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 finish last. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the project in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
