A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has entailed a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now at over 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on various components of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
