Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has required a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at over 400 and intended to attain the goal of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the program across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
