Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now at over 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing 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 Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, 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 non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the program across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
