Approximately twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the circuit. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that leader talks to a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
