Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has involved a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO echoed this he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now at over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that manager communicates with a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
