Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes minds are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate 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 forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader consults a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
