Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With every day that passes minds are sharper on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the program across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that leader talks to a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Avoiding management approval for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this nimble methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
