Just over one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the team from scratch has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, 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 made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on various components of the project in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader talks to a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
