A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes focus are more focused on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to hit the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
