Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable 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 Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now at over 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling various components of the program at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
