Just over one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the green light as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to change team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the project in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
