Approximately one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has entailed a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the America, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“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 feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the process of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
