A little more than a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the impending critical moment in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect 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,” the team principal stated recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Avoiding management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile approach will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
