A little more than a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for 2026. Building the team from nothing has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia 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 cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the mission across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
