Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as F1's newest entry for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has required a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on various components of the program in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
