Just over twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
