Just over a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has entailed a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each day that elapses minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now at over 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader consults a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
