A little more than a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has involved a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager consults a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
