Approximately one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the America, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the race track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching over 400 and planned to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the project at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The success of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
