Just over a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored 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 says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are sharper on the looming decisive point in Australia and targets are being handled.
“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 feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the team are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that manager consults a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
