Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit 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 never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible 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 personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on various components of the mission at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
