Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the official approval as F1's latest entry for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the program in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
