Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from scratch has involved a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the track. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the process of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, different from the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal just before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
