A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the green light as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne 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 commented this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now up to over 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, different from the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the mission across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor consults a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
