A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as Formula One’s most recent entry for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has involved a frenetic 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, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that manager communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
