Just over one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a wry smile when considering the journey.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “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 our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the program at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that manager communicates with a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
