A little more than a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at over 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on various components of the program across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
