Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has involved a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing 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 sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses focus are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, different from the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
