Approximately twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as F1's latest entry for 2026. Establishing the team from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
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 specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
