A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now at more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to build the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling various components of the program at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
