A little more than a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the America, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the impending critical moment in Australia and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the target of six hundred quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the program across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that leader consults a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
