A little more than twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Establishing the squad from scratch has involved a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, different from the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the project in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
