Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now up to more than 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the process of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race 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 feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on various components of the program at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
