Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this group, this staff, 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 top gear, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the mission across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
