A little more than one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
