Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has required a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in the spring of 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 considering the journey.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, 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 working on distinct elements of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader consults a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
