Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses minds are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
