Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around three months 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 sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are more focused on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, 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 mission at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that manager talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
