A little more than a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has involved a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now at more than 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the center to manufacture the new engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the project in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
