Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural 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 CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes focus are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely 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, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now reaching more than 400 and intended to hit the goal of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the project across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that leader talks to a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
