A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has entailed a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the objective of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on different aspects of the project across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
