Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a amused expression when considering the ride.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the program at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
