A little more than one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has required a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the America, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
