Just over a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
