Approximately one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has required a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of building an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to build the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
