Just over a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the project in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for each action is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
