Approximately twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
