Just over a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and gets a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
