Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has involved a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the objective of six hundred quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, different from the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling various components of the project in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile approach will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
