Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the official approval as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by minds are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, set for the 2029 season – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
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 assortment of project teams all working on different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
