A little more than twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the America, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With every day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the process of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the program at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
