Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as F1's newest participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from the ground up has entailed a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the race track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at over 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to build the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the project in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader talks to a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
