Just over one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes minds are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the objective of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the mission at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
