A little more than one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 members quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling various components of the mission across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
