Approximately twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching more than 400 and intended to reach the goal of six hundred quickly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of building an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
