Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has required a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching over 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 rapidly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of completing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager consults a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
