Just over one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the race track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the program across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
