A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the green light as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now at more than 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that leader communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
