Approximately twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses focus are more focused on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, 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 mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
