A little more than twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching over 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the mission across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager talks to a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
