Approximately twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has involved a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to over 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the program at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
