Approximately a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the project in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
