Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses minds are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
