Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the season to be staged in the America, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching over 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager consults a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
