Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has entailed a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the US, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the mission across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
