A little more than a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. 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 flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that manager communicates with a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
