Approximately a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the organization from nothing has required a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of six hundred quickly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the mission across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that manager talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble methodology will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
