Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has entailed a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that passes focus are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad 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 recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
