Just over twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of six hundred quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
