A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut 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 cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all tackling various components of the project across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
