Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the US, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP 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 simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the mission at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that manager talks to a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
