A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds 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 embryonic project in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with employees now at over 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the project in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
