Just over one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now up to over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
