Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume 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,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove 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 right things on the track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, 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 difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at over 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
