Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track 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 task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With every day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of six hundred quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the program in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
