Just over twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has involved a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the program in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
