A little more than a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and gets a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the race track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
