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Approximately twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.

The Countdown to Australia

At the final race of the championship to be held in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the ride.

“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”

An Unprecedented Opportunity

Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry backed 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?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to change team culture.”

With each day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.

“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the team had a point to prove as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression from there on.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Push

In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”

To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.

NASA Inspiration

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the program at a multiple sites.

“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”

The Future

The success of this agile approach will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta