A little more than a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
