A little more than a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest participant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now at over 400 and intended to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the new engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
