Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has required a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being managed.
“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,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at over 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that manager consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
