Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 quickly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
