Just over a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the race track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling different aspects of the program at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
